In order to improve animal welfare it is recommended that dairy farmers move calving cows from the herd to individual pens when calving is imminent. However, the practicality of moving cows has proven a challenge and may lead to disturbance of the cows rather than easing the process of calving. One solution may be to allow the cow to seek isolation prior to calving. This study examined whether ...

Sixty-two, 2-yr-old heifers and 65 cows, 4 to 7 yr old, were assigned randomly at 60 d before the median predicted calving date to a factorially designed study. Main effects were: age of dam (heifer or cow), moderate (M) or high (H) precalving feed level (110 or 135% of National Research Council recommendation) and short (S) or prolonged (P) duration of Stage II of parturition. After calving, a...

Wheat grain (WG) is unique in possessing extensive starch and nitrogen fermentation (i.e. >85% in ground and steam-processed WG), low cation-anion difference and high-intake properties, making it a potentially useful prepartal dietary choice. The objective was to determine the effects of WG provision to pre-partum first-calf heifers on metabolic, health and productive criteria during the transi...

The objective of this study was to evaluate calving intervals and repeatability of calving intervals of young beef cows when breeding seasons were initiated immediately after calving. Average calving date at 2, 3, and 4 yr of age was recorded, and duration of calving interval between the first and second and second and third parities was compared in 178 crossbred beef cows calving between 1981 ...

The present experiment examined the effect of offering either a high- (H) or low- (L) energy-density diet in late gestation and early lactation on physiological parameters, body condition score (BCS) and milk production in early lactation. In all, 40 multiparous Holstein cows were randomly allocated to one of four treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial design, where the factors were H- or L-energy den...

The data of 35 years from 1980 to 2014 were analyzed to study the effect of genetic and non-genetic factors viz. period of calving, season of calving as fixed effect and sire as random effect on the reproduction trait (age at first calving) of Kankrej cattle maintained at Livestock Research Station, S.D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat. The least square mean of age at first ...