Improved reproductive performance has a substantial benefit for the overall profitability of dairy cattle farming by decreasing insemination and veterinary treatment costs, shortening calving intervals, and lowering the rate of involuntary culling. Unfortunately, the low heritability of classical fertility traits derived from calving and inseminati...
During the transition period, dairy cows experience a negative energy balance (NEB) caused by the high energy requirement for milk yield, while feed intake is limited. Severity of the NEB has been associated with an increased incidence of metabolic disorders and infectious diseases, inflammation, immunosuppression and oxidative stress. It is known ...
Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas (GHG) with a global warming potential of 28 CO2 equivalents. The livestock sector was estimated to emit 7.1 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents, which is approximately 14.5% of total global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Enteric CH4 production is the main source of GHG emissions from dairy cattle, representing 46% of the g...
Enteric methane (CH4) is produced as a result of microbial fermentation of feed components in the gastrointestinal tract of ruminant livestock. Methane has no nutritional value for the animal and is predominately released into the environment through eructation and breath. Therefore, CH4 not only represents a greenhouse gas contributing to global w...
Improving longevity helps to increase the profit of the farmer, and it is seen as an important measure of improved animal welfare and sustainability of the sector. Breeding values for longevity have been published since in 1999 in the Netherlands. For AI-companies and farmers it is necessary that breeding values are accurately estimated and will re...
A dry period of dairy cows is historically seen as a period during which the cow can restore its body condition and regenerate its mammary epithelium in order to be high yielding in the successive lactation. Recent work has indicated that high yielding cows generally experience a severe negative energy balance in early lactation. Dry period reducti...
Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia): a forgotten crop for dairy cows with future potential SUMMARY The world population growth and rising incomes are expected to increase the consumption of animal-derived foods such as meat, eggs and milk. However, livestock production should not only be directed towards increasing productivity but should also incorpo...
Mitigation of methane production from dairy cows is critical to reduce the dairy industry’s contribution to the production of greenhouse gases. None of current used methane measurement methods are flawless and application of the methods is limited to assess the effects of methane mitigation methods under practical conditions. The main objective of ...
De transitieperiode is een kritische fase in het leven van melkvee. Vroege identificatie van zogenaamde risicokoeien, maakt het mogelijk om vroeg in te grijpen en de transitieperiode te optimaliseren. Gebaseerd op de veerkrachttheorie van biologische systemen hebben we binnen dit onderzoek de hypothese getoetst of de kwetsbaarheid van een individue...
Duchemin, S.I. (2016). Mapping and fine-mapping of genetic factors affecting bovine milk composition. Joint PhD thesis, between Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden and Wageningen University, the Netherlands Bovine milk is an important source of nutrients in Western diets. Unraveling the genetic background of bovine milk composition ...
