The effects of undernutrition and of the duration of undernutrition on changes in whole animal energy metabolism and on spontaneous physical activity were studied in adult, non-lactating, non-pregnant ewes. Animals were first given food at 338 kJ metabolizable energy (ME) per day per kg live weight. (0.75) (LW(0.75)), (M). Intake was then reduced by half (0.5M) during 7 weeks. Diet apparent digestibility decreased slightly with undernutrition. Rate of LW loss remained constant throughout the whole 0.5M period. Heat production (HP) declined by proportionately 0.18 within the 1st week at 0.5M and by another 0.05 in the following weeks. These latter changes were directly related to LW loss, since HP scaled to metabolic LW remained unchanged over the whole 0.5M period. Time spent standing decreased with undernutrition from proportionately 0.42 at M to 0.33 at 0.5M as a result of a reduction in the average duration of individual standing periods at all hours of the day except in a few hours preceeding feeding times. Energy cost of standing could not be dissociated from the energy cost of eating; these overall costs were not clearly modified by undernutrition but varied with time post prandially. Standing cost alone was estimated at 10 J/min per kg LW. Efficiency of ME utilization for maintenance (k(m)) was calculated at 0.71, and ME requirements for maintenance (MEm) at 338 kJ/day per kg LW(0.75). No adaptation was noted with the duration of undernutrition. Accounting far the behavioural adaptation tended to increase k(m) to 0.74 but MEm remained unchanged, suggesting that the behavioural changes observed with undernutrition were not sufficient to significantly modify whole animal energy metabolism.