Prepartum Behavior and Dry Matter Intake Identify Dairy Cows at Risk for Metritis

Factors Affecting Dry Matter Intake by Lactating Dairy Cows

Feed intake is the single most critical factor of dairy production, and performance of dairy cattle can be enhanced or hindered by environmental factors that affect it. These environmental factors can by divided into physical and climatic conditions. On modern dairies, the physical factors may be of more concern. Modern facilities provide the cow with protection from the natural elements. Howev...

Sward Factors Influence on Pasture Dry Matter Intake of Grazing Dairy Cows: A Review

Successful pasture-based milk production systems pivot on balancing dairy cows’ feed requirements with seasonal and annual fluctuations in pasture production. In order to maximise cow production from grazing dairy systems, it is necessary to reach an efficient utilization of grazed grass for feeding cows and the development of appropriate grazing management systems designed to maximize daily pa...

Treatment of Postpartum Metritis in Dairy Cows

Improving Dry-matter Intake of Perennial-ryegrass Pasture by Dairy Cows

Dairy cows fed on perennial-ryegrass pasture produce higher-quality milk in terms of fatty-acid composition; however, they produce much less milk compared to dairy cows under other systems. The low dry-matter intake (DMI) has been identified as the main factor responsible for the lower milk production in pasture-based systems. To maximize milk production from those systems it is important to ma...

Achieving High Dry-matter Intake from Pasture with Grazing Dairy Cows

Due to economic, environmental and animal-welfare constraints, it is envisaged that in the future a larger proportion of the milk produced in temperate regions will be produced from grazed pasture. However, with the selection of modern higher-production dairy cows, increased emphasis on product quality and issues associated with nitrogen leaching, soil compaction, greenhouse-gas emissions and a...