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The effect of severity of grazing on milk production of grazing dairy cows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2017

C.S. Mayne
Affiliation:
Grassland Research Institute, Permanent Grassland Division, North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 2SB
R.D. Newberry
Affiliation:
Grassland Research Institute, Permanent Grassland Division, North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 2SB
S.C.F. Woodcock
Affiliation:
Grassland Research Institute, Permanent Grassland Division, North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 2SB
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Extract

Hodgson (1975) has shown that herbage intake of the grazing dairy cow is maximised when the daily herbage allowance on offer is equivalent to four times the amount eaten, with a rapid decline in intake when herbage allowance falls below 40g organic matter/kg liveweight/day. This relationship between herbage intake and allowance results from the increasing difficulty of prehending herbage as the sward is grazed closer to the ground. Under a rotational grazing system, the height to which grass is grazed (residual herbage height) is a useful estimate of the amount of herbage available to the grazing animal. The present study was designed to establish the relationship between residual herbage height and milk production.

Type
Milk Production
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1984

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References

Hodgson, J. (1975). The influence of grazing pressure and stocking rate on herbage intake and animal performance. In Pasture Utilization by the Grazing Animal (ed. Hodgson, J. and Jackson, D.K.), Occ. Symp. Br. Grassld. Soc, No. 8, pp. 93103.Google Scholar