Abstract

Most functions used to describe the lactation curve of dairy animals are empirical in approach and result in parameters with little or no biological meaning. A new model for describing lactation based on the biology of the pregnant and lactating animal is proposed and compared to several empirical models (Wood, 1967; Grossman and Koops, 1988; Morant and Gnanasakthy, 1989).Lactation is thought of as the balance between an increase in secretory cell numbers (NSCP) and their later decline (NSCD). The difference between them is the number of active secretory cells, each of which secretes milk at a particular rate (S kg/cell/day). Thus daily milk yield (MY) = (NSCP – NSCD) x S.

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