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Development and evaluation of the herd dynamic milk model with focus on the individual cow component

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2016

E. Ruelle ,
L. Delaby ,
M. Wallace  and
L. Shalloo
E. Ruelle*
Affiliation:
Teagasc, Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
L. Delaby
Affiliation:
INRA-Agrocampus-Ouest, UMR 1348, Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l’Animal et les Systèmes d’Elevage, Domaine de la Prise, 35590 Saint Gilles, France
M. Wallace
Affiliation:
School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
L. Shalloo
Affiliation:
Teagasc, Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ireland
*
†E-mail: elodie.ruelle@teagasc.ie
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Abstract

The herd dynamic milk (HDM) model is a dynamic model capable of simulating the performance of individual dairy animals (from birth to death), with a daily time step. Within this study, the HDM model is described and evaluated in relation to milk production, body condition score (BCS) and BCS change throughout lactation by comparing model simulations against data from published experimental studies. The model’s response to variation in genetic potential, herbage allowance and concentrate supplementation was tested in a sensitivity analysis. Data from experiments in Ireland and France over a 3-year period (2009–11) were used to complete the evaluation. The aim of the Irish experiment was to determine the impact of different stocking rates (SRs) (SR1: 3.28 cow/ha, SR2: 2.51 cow/ha) on key physical, biological and economic performance. The aim of the French experiment was to evaluate over a prolonged time period, the ability of two breeds of dairy cows (Holstein and Normande) to produce and to reproduce under two feeding strategies (high level and low level) in the context of compact calving. The model evaluation was conducted at the herd level with separate evaluations for the primiparous and multiparous cows. The evaluation included the two extreme SRs for the Irish experiment, and an evaluation at the overall herd and individual animal level for the different breeds and feeding levels for the French data. The comparison of simulation and experimental data for all scenarios resulted in a relative prediction error, which was consistently <15% across experiments for weekly milk production and BCS. In relation to BCS, the highest root mean square error was 0.27 points of BCS, which arose for Holstein cows in the low feeding group in late lactation. The model responded in a realistic fashion to variation in genetic potential for milk production, herbage allowance and concentrate supplementation.

Keywords

modellingmodel evaluationdairy cowsmilk yieldbody condition score
Type
Research Article
Information
animal , Volume 10 , Issue 12 , December 2016 , pp. 1986 - 1997
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2016 

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