Systematic effects on activity, milk yield, milk flow rate and electrical conductivity

Abstract. The traits activity, milk yield, milk flow rate and electrical conductivity were analysed in preparation for automatic oestrus detection. Collection of data was performed on a commercial dairy farm and milking took place in a rotary milking parlour. Between February and December 1998 1,090,031 observations from 2,422 Holstein Friesian cows were accumulated. Around 30% of cows were milked thrice daily. For each trait and each cow a daily value was calculated. The fixed effects test day, parity, calving season, milking frequency, week of lactation and the random effect cow were considered in statistical analyses.

With increasing number of parity, activity decreased and milk yield, milk flow rate and electrical conductivity increased. The milking frequency had significant influence on all analysed traits and for the effect calving season no consistent trend was found. All traits showed characteristic patterns during lactation. Between test days high variations were found for the trait activity. The remaining traits showed a steady level except for small fluctuations. Repeatability was 27.4% for activity and between 70 and 78.7% for the milk parameters. The repeatabilities verified the collected field data having a satisfying structure for application in automatic oestrus detection. The repeatability of the trait activity indicated high differences between and within cows. The right skewed distribution indicated the activity as a promising trait for further analyses.