Rearing diet effects on body condition and milk performance in first lactating dairy cows – A longitudinal study

Abstract. Fourteen pairs of identical female Holstein twins were used for a feeding trial during a period between 3rd and 21st month. One in two sibling was reared continuously at a medium (M) and the other one at a high (H) feeding intensity. Lasting diet effects of body weight (BW), back fat thickness (BFT), and milk performance (M-kg) were analyzed for the subsequent lactation.

A lasting diet effect was verifiable for BFT, whereas BW don’t differ between groups. BFT indicated the changes from negative to positive energy balance 7 and 10 weeks later than BW, for M and H group, respectively. Besides, BFT showed, that the duration and dimension of negative energy balance was longer in H group than in M group. BFT difference became smaller according day of lactation and resulted in about zero at day 305 of lactation. If the groups were compared only by feeding intensity, the daily milk yield was 1.7 kg higher in M than in H group, but the difference didn’t show any significance (p=0.22). However, the tendency of superiority was completely absorbed after the addition of the covariate age at first calving (AFC) in the model. Presented date in identical twins give no indications for lasting feeding effects per se on milk performance.