Restricted suckling is one of the most common forms of livestock production in developing countries. It combines partial milk extraction and suckling, in a multi-commodity (milk and calf) production system.

The objective of this experiment was to determine the possibility of the use of once daily suckling to increase total milk production without reducing reproductive performance or the ‘ quantity’ of milk extracted at milking in crossbred cattle.

A total of 36 cows, locally known as ‘Lucerna’, were placed into two treatments. 18 cows were non-suckled and 18 cows were restricted suckled once daily for 15 minutes following milking (p.m.). All experimental cows had completed two or more lactations and at 3 days post partum were simultaneously allocated to the treatments according to: parity; condition score; previous lactation yield and calving interval. The cows remained in the experiment for 100 days.