Effect of cooking temperature on alkaline phosphatase in the production of raw-milk Pecorino cheese.

Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) is a native raw-milk enzyme used in many countries as the standard assay for rapidly validating the milk pasteurization process. Due to the increased restrictions on the production or import of cheeses produced from unpasteurized milk, ALP activity (<10 mU/g) in cheese was measured as a simple and reliable method to check proper milk pasteurization in cheese for both safety inspection and trading controls. In Sicily, the artisanal cheesemaking of the Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) semi-hard cheeses made with raw sheep milk, includes the cooking of the curd, after whey separation, in a wooden vat under hot Scotta whey (≥80°C), for 3 to 4 h, and finally is left to cool at ambient temperature.

Association of total mixed ration particle fractions retained on the Penn State Particle Separator with milk, fat, and protein yield lactation curves at the cow level.

As part of a larger project aiming to develop management evaluation tools based on results from test-day (TD) models, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of physical composition of total mixed rations (TMR) tested quarterly from March 2006 through December 2008 on milk, fat, and protein yield curves for 25 herds in Ragusa, Sicily. A random regression sire-maternal grandsire model was used to estimate variance components for milk, fat, and protein yields fitted on a full data set, including 241,153 TD records from 9,809 animals in 42 herds recorded from 1995 through 2008. The model included parity, age at calving, year at calving, and stage of pregnancy as fixed effects.

Association of total-mixed-ration chemical composition with milk, fat, and protein yield lactation curves at the individual level.

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of the chemical composition of a total mixed ration (TMR) tested quarterly from March 2006 through December 2008 for milk, fat, and protein yield curves for 27 herds in Ragusa, Sicily. Before this study, standard yield curves were generated on data from 241,153 test-day records of 9,809 animals from 42 herds in Ragusa province collected from 1995 to 2008. A random regression sire-maternal grandsire model was used to develop variance components for yields.

How do dairy cows chew?--particle size analysis of selected feeds with different particle length distributions and of respective ingested bolus particles.

Not only feed but also respective bolus particle size could alter diet efficiency and cow performance. The objective of this project was to characterize particle size of selected feeds and respective swallowed boli. Feed samples included 6 different particle length rye grass hay samples, 1 grass silage, 1 corn silage, and 1 total mixed ration (TMR).

Objective estimation of body condition score by modeling cow body shape from digital images.

Body condition score (BCS) is considered an important tool for management of dairy cattle. The feasibility of estimating the BCS from digital images has been demonstrated in recent work. Regression machines have been successfully employed for automatic BCS estimation, taking into account information of the overall shape or information extracted on anatomical points of the shape.