Animal Science Abstract
Accuracy of predicting milk yield from alternative milk recording schemes
D. P. Berry1,2,A, V. E. Olori3, A. R. Cromie3, R. F. Veerkamp4, M. Rath2 and P. Dillon1
AE-mail : dberry@moorepark.teagasc.ie
1Dairy Production Department, Teagasc, Moorepark Production Research Centre, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland2Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
3Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, Shinagh House, Bandon, Co. Cork. Ireland
4Animal Resources Development, Animal Sciences Group, Wageningen UR, PO Box 65, 8200 AB Lelystad, The Netherlands
Abstract
The effect of reducing the frequency of official milk recording and the number of recorded samples per test-day on the accuracy of predicting daily yield and cumulative 305-day yield was investigated. A control data set consisting of 58 210 primiparous cows with milk test-day records every 4 weeks was used to investigate the influence of reduced milk recording frequencies. The accuracy of prediction of daily yield with one milk sample per test-day was investigated using 41 874 test-day records from 683 cows. Results show that five or more test-day records taken at 8-weekly intervals (A8) predicted 305-day yield with a high level of accuracy. Correlations between 305-day yield predicted from 4-weekly recording intervals (A4) and from 8-weekly intervals were 0·99, 0·98 and 0·98 for milk, fat and protein, respectively. The mean error in estimating 305-day yield from the A8 scheme was 6·8 kg (s.d. 191 kg) for milk yield, 0·3 kg (s.d. 10 kg) for fat yield, and -0·3 kg (s.d. 7 kg) for protein yield, compared with the A4 scheme. Milk yield and composition taken during either morning (AM) or evening (PM) milking predicted 24-h yield with a high degree of accuracy. Alternating between AM and PM sampling every 4 weeks predicted 305-day yield with a higher degree of accuracy than either all AM or all PM sampling. Alternate AM-PM recording every 4 weeks and AM + PM recording every 8 weeks produced very similar accuracies in predicting 305-day yield compared with the official AM + PM recording every 4 weeks.
| Search for papers on a specific subject | |
|---|---|
 |
|