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Between-herd variation in resilience and relations to herd performance.
M Poppe1, H A Mulder1, C Kamphuis1
1Wageningen University & Research, Animal Breeding and Genomics, PO Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Journal of Dairy Science
|December 4, 2020
Summary
Herd management significantly impacts cow resilience, with feed management playing a key role. Poor management, indicated by high variance in milk yield, correlates with health issues and reduced cow survival, highlighting the need for improved practices.
Area of Science:
- Animal Science
- Dairy Cattle Management
- Animal Health
Background:
- Cow resilience is crucial for minimizing the impact of infections and disturbances.
- Herd management practices are hypothesized to influence cow resilience and disturbance recovery.
- Understanding these effects is vital for improving dairy herd health and productivity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of herd management on cow resilience indicators.
- To assess the relationship between herd-year resilience estimates and herd performance variables.
- To identify specific management factors, particularly feed management, influencing herd resilience.
Main Methods:
- Two individual cow resilience indicators were measured: variance and lag-1 autocorrelation of daily milk yield deviations.
- Herd-year estimates of these indicators were calculated for 9,917 herd-year classes using data from 227,655 primiparous cows.
- Genetic and year-season effects were corrected, and herd-year estimates were correlated with herd performance variables.
Main Results:
- Significant differences in resilience indicators were observed across herd-years, indicating management influence.
- High variance (poor resilience) correlated with higher incidence of rumen acidosis, elevated somatic cell score, lower milk fat and lactose, longer calving intervals, and reduced survival.
- High autocorrelation showed mixed correlations, suggesting it's a less reliable indicator of resilience alone, but high variance combined with high autocorrelation indicates poor recovery.
Conclusions:
- Herd management, especially feed management, significantly affects dairy cow resilience.
- High variance in milk yield is a strong indicator of poor herd resilience and is linked to various health and performance issues.
- Further research into specific feed management strategies is warranted to enhance herd resilience and overall dairy farm productivity.
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