Data were collected on the heart girth (n = 8,565; a measure of body weight) and height at withers (n = 8,568) of Holstein dairy heifers from 659 dairy farms as part of the National Dairy Heifer Evaluation Project during 1991 and 1992. Means and standard deviations for weight and height were determined for ages .5 to 23.5 mo. Third-order polynomial regression equations were derived to study the...

Grazing pastures to low post-grazing sward heights (PGSH) is a strategy to maximise the quantity of grazed grass in the diet of dairy cows within temperate grass-based systems. Within Irish spring-calving systems, it was hypothesised that grazing swards to very low PGSH would increase herbage availability during early lactation but would reduce dairy cow performance, the effect of which would p...

The objective was to evaluate 6 different lactation curve models for daily water and dry matter intake. Data originated from the Futterkamp dairy research farm of the Chamber of Agriculture of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. A data set of about 23,000 observations from 193 Holstein cows was used. Average daily water and dry matter intake were 82.3 and 19.8 kg, respectively. The basic linear mixe...

A high rate of on-farm cow mortality (i.e. unassisted death and euthanasia) is both a financial concern and an important animal welfare issue. The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate the development of mortality in Swedish dairy herds and to identify characteristics associated with on-farm mortality at cow and herd levels. In paper I, two analyses were performed using data from the cattl...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of diets containing roasted soybean (R), extruded soybean (E) or their combination (RE) on dairy cow performance and milk fatty acid (FA) profile. Nine multiparous lactating Holstein cows (680 ± 25 kg BW; 90 ± 10 DIM; means ± SD) were randomly assigned to a triple 3 × 3 Latin square design. Dry matter intake (DMI), apparent nutrient dige...

Approximately 20% of the beef tonnage produced in the United States is derived from Holsteins, through harvested dairy beef or cull dairy cows (Randy Blach, Cattle-Fax, personal communication). This represents a significant contribution to the U.S. beef supply. More and more large commercial feed yards have seen the opportunity available with feeding Holstein steers. Inherent variation between ...

This experiment examined the long-term effects of offering diets containing low levels of dietary phosphorus (P) on dairy cow health, fertility and bone composition, and the effect of dietary P level on nutrient utilisation. One hundred winter-calving Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were offered diets containing either 'high' or 'low' levels of dietary P over a 4-year period. Rations offered durin...

The study was carried out to assess whether hot seasons affect the oxidative status of transition dairy cows. Twenty Holstein cows were utilized. Eleven of those cows gave birth in spring; the remaining nine cows gave birth in summer. Oxidative status was evaluated from 21 d before to 35 d after calving, determining oxidative markers in plasma [glutathione peroxidase activity, thiol groups, rea...

Objective: Ceftiofur, a third-generation cephalosporin, is used as a usual antimicrobial drug in veterinary medicine. Positive efficiency of ceftiofur for treatment of retained fetal membrane (RFM) and acute puerperal metritis has been previously reported. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of ceftiofur hydrochloride (CH) in prevention of uterine postpart...