In a context of major advances in electronic/computer technologies, identifying key and routinely measurable criterial to detect animals that are likely to be more efficient in various feeding environments, is essential. For that purpose, a meta-analysis carried out on 110 publications (n) and gathering 905 experiments (nexp) involving feeding behaviour of grazing ruminants, stressed the importance of the bite mass (BM, mg DM/bite/kg BW, 0.11 < 1.79  1.27 < 7.41, n = 582), as an essential unitary criterion for dry matter intake (DMI, 0.25 < 2.79 1.06 < 8.01 % BW, n =238). The intra-experiment equation is DMI = 2.16 + 0.56 BM (RMSE = 0.42, n = 180, nexp = 67). This meta-analysis also highlighted the importance of the incisive arcade (IA, 2.22 < 5.23  2.11 < 8.60 cm, n = 112), which is measurable and related both to BW (IA = 0.91 BW 0.346, RMSE = 0.27, n =20) and to BM (BM = 0.015 IA1.88, RMSE = 0.10, n = 45, nexp= 21). In addition, we have tested several predictive regressions of DMI and notably one based on BM combined with ruminating time (RU, 0.52 < 6.06  2.15 <9.57 h/day, n = 265). The equation is DMI= 1.395 + 0.652 BM + 0.097 RU, (RMSE=0.19, n = 87, nexp= 33). It must be emphasized that grazing time (GT, 3.33 < 8.79 ± 2.43 < 18.00 h/day, n = 142) has no influence in the latter equation; moreover, the association of BM and GT in order to predict DMI is less accurate than the association of BM and RU (RMSE of 0.28 vs 0.19, respectively). Otherwise, biting rate (BR, 11.18 < 46.89  14.65 <106.71 min-1, n = 559), which is also an easily measurable parameter, presents no intra experiment relationship with DMI. As the BM can be estimated from the IA, measurable with a simple Vernier caliper, and that RU is easily measurable with various technologies such as acoustic recordings or accelerometers, these findings are very promising for assessing feed efficiency and individually.