Associations between early lactation milk protein concentrations and the intervals to calving for Holstein cows of differing parity

Abstract

High milk protein concentrations (MP%) have been positively associated with the reproductive performance of lactating dairy cows. No studies have measured the effects of this association on subsequent calving dates in multiparous cows, nor assessed whether the underlying causal mechanisms are present in nulliparous heifers. Holstein cows (primiparous = 918; multiparous = 4242) were selected from herds that had seasonally concentrated calving patterns resulting from seasonally restricted breeding periods. In seasonally calving herds, the date of a herd’s planned start of calving (PSC date) is the average gestation length of 282 days after the date that the preceding breeding period commenced, so that the interval from the herd’s PSC date to each cow’s actual calving date (PSC-to-calving interval) primarily reflects the time to conception from the start of the breeding period in the previous year. This measure was used to compare associations between the average MP% during the first 120 days of lactation and time to the calving that initiated that lactation in primiparous and multiparous cows. Early lactation MP% was negatively associated with PSC-to-calving interval. A 1% difference in MP% was associated with an 8-day difference in the average PSC-to-calving interval in primiparous cows and a 31–35-day difference in the average interval in multiparous cows. The observed associations between early lactation MP% and PSC-to-calving interval are likely to involve determinants present during a cow’s breeding period that affect the probability of conception. Some of these determinants are not restricted to early lactation as the association between MP% and PSC-to-calving interval in primiparous cows is a reflection of the reproductive performance in nulliparous heifers at ~15 months of age.