Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2017
Nutritional regime during the dry period (DP) has been shown to affect lactational performance in dairy cows. These responses could be mediated by a variety of mechanisms (e.g. increased labile body proteins, function of the mammary gland or the liver, or modifying endocrine status), which are likely to exert an overlapping function.This study analysed the effect of protein (P) and/or fat (F) supplementation in the DP on plasma metabolite and hormone concentrations, as a complement to studies on body composition (Jaurena et al. 2001b.) and subsequent milk production (Jaurena et al., 2001a.) performance. Other results also associated with this work are presented in Jaurena et al. (2003).