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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #402333
Research Project: Improving Dairy Cow Feed Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability Using Genomics and Novel Technologies to Identify Physiological Contributions and Adaptations

Location: Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory

Title: Consistency of daily dry matter intake as an indicator of resilience: heritability estimates and associations with feed efficiency in Holstein cows

Author
item CAVANI, LIGIA - University Of Wisconsin
item PARKER GADDIS, KRISTEN - Council On Dairy Cattle Breeding
item Baldwin, Ransom - Randy
item SANTOS, JOSE - University Of Florida
item KOLTES, JAMES - Iowa State University
item TEMPELMAN, ROBERT - Michigan State University
item VANDEHAAR, MICHAEL - Michigan State University
item WHITE, HEATHER - University Of Wisconsin
item PENAGARICANO, FRANCISCO - University Of Wisconsin
item WEIGEL, KENT - University Of Wisconsin

Submitted to: Journal of Dairy Science
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/21/2023
Publication Date: 6/25/2023
Citation: Cavani, L., Parker Gaddis, K., Baldwin, R.L., Santos, J., Koltes, J., Tempelman, R., Vandehaar, M., White, H., Penagaricano, F., Weigel, K. 2023. Consistency of daily dry matter intake as an indicator of resilience: Heritability estimates and associations with feed efficiency in Holstein cows [abstract]. Journal of Dairy Science. 106(Suppl. 1):121(abstr. 2514).

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Resilience can be defined as the capacity to maintain performance or bounce back to normal functioning after a perturbation. Using high-frequency data to analyze fluctuations in daily feeding intake can be a promising tool for identifying resilient dairy cows. Our goal was to develop new phenotypes based on consistency of daily dry matter intake (DMI) and estimate heritabilities and genetic correlations with residual feed intake (RFI) in Holstein cows. Data consisted of 171k daily DMI records of 2,915 lactating Holstein cows collected from 2010 to 2022 in 5 research stations across the United States. Consistency phenotypes were calculated based on the deviations from expected daily DMI for each cow during the feeding trial (27 to 122 d). Expected values were derived from parametric and non-parametric models, including quadradic and cubic quantile regression using a 0.5 quantile, and Loess regression using span parameters ranging from 0.2 to 0.7. We then calculated the log of variance (logVar) of the deviations for each model. Genetic parameters were estimated using an animal model, including lactation and days in milk as fixed effects and cohort and animal as random effects. Estimates of heritability for logVar were around 0.05±0.01 and did not differ across models. Spearman’s rank correlation of sires’ breeding values for logVar ranged from 0.80 to 0.98 across models. The estimated genetic correlation between logVar from cubic quantile regression and RFI was 0.18±0.20, and between logVar from Loess regression with 0.7 span parameter and RFI it was 0.18±0.19. Overall, variance of deviations from expected daily DMI can be used as a phenotype for genetic analysis because it is heritable and appears to be genetically correlated with feed efficiency, indicating that cows with greater variation in daily DMI may be less efficient and less resilient.