Use of regular milking records versus daily records for nutrition and other kinds of management

Abstract

Regular monthly milking record is mainly used as a tool for breeding, but is also used for nutrition and management decisions. Since the type of records have different purposes, it can be questioned if monthly regular records are optimal for nutrition and management decisions on herd level. The most optimal registration frequency is at every milking, but this is only justifiable for traits that can be measured by automatic in-line methods. Daily recording of milk yield is the trait that gives the most benefits to the farmers. The total energy requirement is to the most part dependent of the milk yield. The milk yield has the largest day-to-day variation of traits used for calculating the energy requirements and the lactation curve of milk yield varies between the cows. Systematic decline in milk yield gives a warning of disturbances in the milk production, which can be used as a tool for early warning, management decisions and predicting production capacity. In order to determine the limits for alarms, daily record for management decision requires knowledge about the day-to-day variation for the parameters. Traits with high relative day-to-day variation (milk yield, fat content and milk urea) should be recorded frequent when used for management decisions and for diagnostic purposes. Traits with low relative day-to-day variation (protein and lactose content) could be recorded less frequent. Fast and reliable cow-side methods for health and metabolic disturbances traits would be of great benefits in the future. Automatic in-line quarter milk yield units might be an excellent tool for early warning of mastitis. In conclusion daily or more frequently record for nutrition and management decision is recommended, specially for traits that can be measured automatically and has large variations between milking and during the lactation period. Automatic in-line methods for milk composition can in the future be a valuable tool for early warnings of metabolic disturbances, especially the fat content and fatty acid composition can give early warnings of feeding strategy.