Multiple Paths to Maximum Milk Production in Dairy Herds

Abstract

Substantial effort has been invested in research strategies to maximize milk production on dairy farms. Nearly all of these approaches have focused on reaching target performance levels for the key components of milk production (milk per cow per day, calving interval, culling rate, etc.). Significant deviations from these targets have been viewed as suboptimal performance and a "problem" to correct through improved management.

However, research in our laboratory using large swine databases has shown that setting targets without regard to the underlying biological and mathematical relationships among performance parameters is imprudent. It inevitably results in a biologically impossible combination of values being set as targets.

In this study, we use production data from 152 dairy herds. We will describe the range of performance for the components of the milk production cycle that were achieved by the highest producing dairy herds in our database. These findings can be used by all dairy producers to set production targets for commonly used productivity measures that are biologically consistent with one another.