Assessment of skeletal muscle dynamics and milk production across a 300-day lactation in multiparous dairy cattle.

The objective of this study was to evaluate changes in longissimus dorsi muscle depth (LDD) across lactation (0 to 300 DIM) and identify the effect of low versus high muscle reserves immediately after parturition on BW and body reserve changes as well as production variables across a 300-d lactation. Forty multiparous cows were classified as high muscle (HM; LDD > 5.0 cm; n = 18) or low muscle (LM; LDD ≤ 5.

Evaluating the performance of herd-specific long short-term memory models to identify automated health alerts associated with a ketosis diagnosis in early-lactation cows.

The growing use of automated systems in the dairy industry generates a vast amount of cow-level data daily, creating opportunities for using these data to support real-time decision-making. Currently, various commercial systems offer built-in alert algorithms to identify cows requiring attention. To our knowledge, no work has been done to compare the use of models accounting for herd-level variability on their predictive ability against automated systems.

High oleic soybean oil maintains milk fat and increases apparent total-tract fat digestibility and fat deposition in lactating dairy cows.

Due to the bioactive properties of oleic acid, the objective of this study was to feed high oleic soybean oil (HOSO) to lactating cows and evaluate milk production, body composition, and apparent total-tract digestibility variables. Thirty Holstein cows (n = 16 primiparous, n = 14 multiparous at 87 ± 26 DIM at the start of the trial) were used in a crossover design with periods lasting 21 d. The treatments were a control (CON) diet with no added soybean oil and a HOSO diet with 1.

Production responses of multiparous dairy cattle with differing prepartum muscle reserves and supplementation of branched-chain volatile fatty acids.

Periparturient dairy cattle undergo physiological adaptations to support fetal growth and colostrum synthesis in late gestation and milk production in early lactation. To support energy and protein demands, dairy cattle mobilize body tissue reserves. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of prepartum skeletal muscle reserves and supplementation of branched-chain volatile fatty acids (BCVFA) on body composition measurements, metabolic markers related to health, protein, and energy status, and subsequent milk yield in multiparous dairy cows.