Association between body condition and production parameters of dairy cows in the experiment with use of BCS camera
¹Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Nowoursynowska street 164, PL 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
²Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Department of Production Engineering, Nowoursynowska street 164, PL 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
*Correspondence: jaroslaw_chlebowski@sggw.pl; marek_gaworski@sggw.pl
Abstract:
Dairy production effectiveness in the farm depends on many technical, technological and biological factors. State of the dairy cow condition constitutes one of the most important element in the assessment of dairy herd and production indices. Including access to modern technical solution to assess body condition of dairy cows, i.e. BCS camera, some results of observation in the herd with 362 cows were collected to find any relationship between BCS index and milk yield per cow including 5 lactation groups and cows differed in age as well as four seasons. Basing on data collected in the period of 11 months it was found that cows with the BCS index lower than 2.9 showed the highest daily milk production. Increase in BCS index was associated with decrease in amount of produced milk per day. The statistical analysis showed significant effect of lactation period, age of animals and season on BCS results in the considered dairy cow production cycle.
Key words:
BCS, camera, cow, index, milk yield