Journal article
The effect of physiological state, milk production traits and environmental conditions on milk fat globule size in cow's milk.
Leonie Walter, Sue Finch, Brendan Cullen, Richard Fry, Amy Logan, Brian J Leury
Journal of Dairy Research | Cambridge University Press (CUP) | Published : 2019
Abstract
This research was carried out to quantify the effects of a range of variables on milk fat globule (MFG) size for a herd of Holstein-Friesian cows managed through an automatic milking system with year-round calving. We hypothesised that the overall variation in average MFG size observed between individual animals of the same herd cannot sufficiently be explained by the magnitude of the effects of variables that could be manipulated on-farm. Hence, we aimed to conduct an extensive analysis of possible determinants of MFG size, including physiological characteristics (parity, days in milk, days pregnant, weight, age, rumination minutes, somatic cell count) and milk production traits (number of ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Kenny Oluboyede and Ashley Gabler for their support with all aspects of data and milk collection, as well as Dr Paula Gonzalez-Rivas and the students at our farm for their help with sampling. We also acknowledge the Melbourne Statistical Consulting Platform for their support with this work.