Analysis of lactating cows in commercial Austrian dairy farms: diet composition, and influence of genotype, parity and stage of lactation on nutrient intake, body weight and body condition score

This study characterises diets used on-farm and examines nutrient and feed intake (DMI) together with other animal specific traits (body weight, milk yield, body condition score). Data came from the project 'Efficient Cow' to develop efficiency traits for Austrian cattle breeding (161 farms, 6105 cows, one-year data collection). Most diets were grass silage- or maize silage-based. Nearly half (42.8%) of the records were diets with separately fed concentrate or were partial mixed rations (PMR, 42.9%), and 12.0% were total mixed rations (TMR). Feedstuffs from permanent grassland ranged between 62% (TMR) and 84% (pure forage diets) of forage. Partial mixed rations and TMR showed the highest average proportion of maize silage (30%). The little importance of pure forage diets and pasture reflected the above-average production level of the farms. Most production traits increased from Fleckvieh (FV) over FV groups with increasing Red Holstein (RH) genes to Holstein Friesian (HF). The FV group with highest RH proportion and HF had the highest energy corrected milk yield (ECM) and DMI (29.3 vs. 29.2 kg ECM/d; 20.8 vs. 20.9 kg DMI/d). Brown Swiss (BS) and FV had lower levels (26.5 vs. 26.7 kg ECM/d; 19.8 vs. 19.7 kg DMI/d). Body condition declined in relation to proportion of RH genes from FV to HF (FV 3.42 Pt., BS 2.88 Pt., HF 2.61 Pt.). The study allowed a broad view on the continuous spectrum between dual-purpose and dairy breeds due to the different characteristics of metabolism and on the common diets on Austrian dairy farms.