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The goal of this study was to test the effects of early experience at grazing medusahead and the availability of forage alternatives on intake of medusahead by sheep. The study involved two phases of 10 days each. During the first phase animals were penned individually in a 2x2 factorial design with early experience at eating medusahead (yes, no) and availability of alfalfa hay (yes, no) as the main factors. All animals were fed freshly harvested medusahead from 1000-1300 and half of the animals received alfalfa hay (0.3% BW). All groups had a basal diet of tall fescue hay. After the pen phase, sheep were clustered in 10 groups (n=5 early experience; n=5 experience gained during phase 1) of 3 sheep each and moved to plots in medusahead-infested rangeland. Grazing events were recorded at five minute intervals from 0800-1000 and 1600-1700. In phase 1, medusahead represented 3.9% of the yearlings' diet and a cyclic pattern of medusahead intake was detected in a day effect (P < 0.0001). The highest intake values (P < 0.05) occurred on days 1 and 10 and an intermediate peak of medusahead intake was observed on day 6 (P > 0.05). In phase 2, the percentage of grazing events recorded on medusahead was almost nil for all animals (0.64 %). Yearlings spent more time eating forbs than grasses until day 7 (57.6 vs. 41.4 %), when the pattern reversed until the end of the phase (61.3 vs. 37.0 %). In summary, intake of medusahead was cyclic and not influenced by the animals' early experiences with the weed or by the availability of forage alternatives.