The aim of this study was to determine if, and under what conditions, indoor-housed dairy cows would seek a shelter to calve. Seventy-two Holstein dairy cows were paired by expected calving date and moved into a maternity pen that contained an open area with no cover and a sheltered area that was covered on all sides except for the ceiling and an entrance where cows could freely enter or exit. ...

Problem statement: Free Met as one of the most limiting AA in dairy cows would be mostly degraded in the rumen. This study was to determine the effect of different levels of RumenProtected Met (RPMet) on dairy performance and serum amino acid metabolism. Approach: Thirtysix Holstein cows in similar condition were randomly assigned to six experimental treatments with six replicates each. Levels ...

We conducted three experiments to determine the effects of dietary thiamin supplementation on milk production by dairy cows. In trial 1, 28 Holstein cows were blocked by parity and assigned randomly to either placebo or thiamin top-dress for the 8-wk experiment to provide a supplemental thiamin intake of 0 or 150 mg/d per cow. Within each of these groups, cows were further assigned randomly to ...

There is a lack of information on genetic parameters for tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility in dairy cattle. Mycobacterium bovis is the primary agent of tuberculosis in cattle.The objective of this study was to quantify the genetic variation present among Irish Holstein Friesian dairy cattle in their susceptibility to M. bovis infection. A total of 15,182 cow and 8,104 heifer single intradermal c...

Typically, central milk recording data from dairy herds are recorded less than monthly. Over-fitting early in lactation periods is a challenge, which we explored in different ways by reducing the number of parameters needed to describe the milk yield and somatic cell count of individual cows. Furthermore, we investigated how the parameters of lactation models correlate between parities and from...

As ruminants are able to digest fibre efficiently and assuming that competition for feed v. food use would intensify in the future, cereals and other field crops should primarily be destined to cover the dietary needs of humans and monogastric animals such as poultry and pigs. Farming systems with a reduced or absent concentrate supplementation, as postulated by organic agriculture associations...

Improving reproductive performance of dairy cattle has become one of the major challenges of the dairy industry worldwide. Most studies have investigated cow fertility while bull fertility has received much less attention. However, there is growing evidence that the service sire represents an important source of variation for conception rate in dairy cattle. As such, the main objective of this ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the effects of Rhodobacter sphaeroides (R. sphaeroides) supplementation as a direct-fed microbial (DFM) on rumen fermentation in dairy cows and on coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) transition into milk, an in vitro rumen simulation batch culture and an in vivo dairy cow experiment were conducted. METHODS The characteristics of in vitro ruminal fermentation were investigated using rume...

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to determine relationship between Lithuanian dairy cow breed productive and reproductive traits. carried out with 586 fully completed lactation cows: 184 Holstein (H), 320 Black White (LBW) 82 Red (LR) cows (291 in I, 149 II 146 III older lactations). Cow productivity reproduction traits were calculated. H I had a lower insemination index compared the LR...