Modelling beef cows’ individual response to short nutrient restriction in different lactation stages

Beef Cows’ Performance and Metabolic Response to Short Nutritional Challenges in Different Months of Lactation

“…They were allowed to suckle their dams daily for two 30-min periods at 06:00 h and 14:00 h. All the cows received the same ration, which was composed of different quantities of hay and concentrate. The chemical composition and nutritive value of feedstuffs are presented in Table 1 (for detailed information see Orquera-Arguero et al, 2022). Diets were calculated by considering the net energy and metabolisable protein requirements for the maintenance and lactation (INRA, 2007) of a standard cow with a BW of 615 kg and a milk yield of 8.5 kg/d.…”

“…In order to disentangle the mechanisms that determine this metabolic flexibility in response to environmental change, the nutritional perturbations involving both short-and long-term feed restriction-refeeding cycles have been widely studied in dairy cows (Abdelatty et al, 2017;Gross et al, 2011a;Pires et al, 2019). In beef cattle, several papers have assessed cows' performance and metabolic response to long-term underfeeding (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al, 2009;Fiems et al, 2015), but adaptation to short-term nutrient restrictions has only been recently considered (De La Torre et al, 2022;Orquera-Arguero et al, 2022). Animals' ability to respond to and recover after short-term disturbances, defined as resilience (Friggens et al, 2022), is key for their performance in variable environments.…”