California is the leading state for production of almonds, with more than 400,000 bearing hectares orchards that produced approximately 1 billion kilograms shelled nuts in 2017. Almond hulls (AH) are a regional by-product feedstuff fed predominantly to dairy cattle California. A 2012 study surveyed 40 farms and found 39 out 104 total mixed rations contained AH, mean daily feeding rate 1.45 kg/c...

For more than 20 years, dairy producers have been using low DCAD diets in their dry cow feeding programs to prevent milk fever and subclinical hypocalcemia during the transition period. The use of low DCAD diets in dry cows has virtually eliminated the incidence of milk fever in most dairy herds. While dairy producers are well aware of the importance of proper DCAD concentrations in the dry per...

Culture of bovine embryos with insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) can improve development to the blastocyst stage and embryo survival following transfer to heat-stressed, lactating dairy cows. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether IGF-1 could improve embryo survival and development at Day 14 after ovulation. In Experiment 1, non-lactating Holstein cows (n=58) were selected as re...

We conducted three experiments to determine the effects of dietary thiamin supplementation on milk production by dairy cows. In trial 1, 28 Holstein cows were blocked by parity and assigned randomly to either placebo or thiamin top-dress for the 8-wk experiment to provide a supplemental thiamin intake of 0 or 150 mg/d per cow. Within each of these groups, cows were further assigned randomly to ...

First-parity Holstein (H), Normande-Holstein (NxH) crossbred, Montbeliarde-Holstein (MxH) crossbred and Scandinavian-Holstein (SxH) crossbred cows calving from June 2001 to December 2003 were compared for dystocia and stillbirths from seven California herds. Dystocia scores ranging from 1 (no assistance) to 5 (hard pull) and stillbirths (1 for alive and 0 for dead) were recorded for 1695 Holste...

this study was conducted to evaluate production response of early lactating cows to rumen protected fats. twelve (nine multiparous and three primiparous) holstein cows (26±4 d in milk) were empolyed in a replicated 3×3 latin square design of 21-d periods. each period consisted of 14 days of adaptation and 7 days of sampling. cows received diets containing either one of two types of protected fa...