Project Details
Description
To improve feed resource efficiency and to reduce the environmental impact of dairy farming,
improving feed efficiency has gained increasing interest. Recently, a breeding company (CRV, Arnhem,
The Netherlands) started with routine recording of individual feed intake of cows on commercial dairy
farms in The Netherlands. These measurements help to utilize individual variation between cows in
feed efficiency. Research suggests that (part of) the variation between cows in feed efficiency could be
explained by differences in digestibility between cows. However, inter-individual variation in feed
digestibility measured at large cohorts of animals is scarce and limited knowledge is available on the
relation between feed intake, feed intake pattern, feed digestibility and feed efficiency. During the last
decades, improvements in nutrition together with genetic selection led to increasing milk yield and
feed intake of cows. At the same time, cows’ ability to digest feed, in particular that of fiber has
decreased, which is undesirable considering the role of a cow in a circular food system, where cows
convert human-inedible fiber-rich diets into high quality human-edible animal products. Therefore, a
high capacity to digest fibers should be (genetically) preserved, or if possible, improved. Hence, in close
collaboration with a PhD candidate from the Animal Breeding and Genomics group of Wageningen
University and Research, the current project aims to improve our fundamental understanding of
(genetic) differences between cows in feed digestibility by collecting and analyzing fecal samples of
approximately 400 cows from which individual feed intake is recorded. Special attention will be given
to nitrogen, as nitrogen excretion is one of the major issues in dairy farming nowadays, especially in
The Netherlands. Furthermore, possibilities to use fast and effective methods to estimate digestibility
and feed efficiency via spectroscopy measurements will be explored.
Status | Active |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 1/02/22 → … |
Fingerprint
Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.