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Describing the lactation curve of dairy animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

G. E. Pollott
G. E. Pollott*
Affiliation:
Wye College – University of London, Ashford, Kent TN25 5AH U.K.
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Extract

Most functions used to describe the lactation curve of dairy animals are empirical in approach and result in parameters with little or no biological meaning. A new model for describing lactation based on the biology of the pregnant and lactating animal is proposed and compared to several empirical models (Wood, 1967; Grossman and Koops, 1988; Morant and Gnanasakthy, 1989).

Lactation is thought of as the balance between an increase in secretory cell numbers (NSCP) and their later decline (NSCD). The difference between them is the number of active secretory cells, each of which secretes milk at a particular rate (S kg/cell/day). Thus daily milk yield (MY) = (NSCP – NSCD) x S.

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Programme
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science , Volume 1999 , 1999 , pp. 197
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 1999

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References

Grossman, M. and Koops, W.J. (1988). Multiphasic analysis of lactation curves in dairy cattle. Journal of Dairy Science 71: 1598– 1608.Google Scholar
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Wood, P. D. P. (1967). Algebraic model of the lactation curve in cattle. Nature 216: 164–165.Google Scholar