Why shorten calving intervals on smallholder dairy farms in East Africa?

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cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.regionEastern Africa
cg.creator.identifierAmos Omore: 0000-0001-9213-9891
cg.isbn0 906562 24 4
cg.number21
cg.subject.ilriDAIRYING
cg.subject.ilriANIMAL PRODUCTS
cg.subject.ilriLIVESTOCK
dc.contributor.authorTanner, J.C.
dc.contributor.authorMcCarthy, N.A.
dc.contributor.authorOmore, Amos O.
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-31T06:22:24Zen
dc.date.available2014-10-31T06:22:24Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/51319
dc.titleWhy shorten calving intervals on smallholder dairy farms in East Africa?en
dcterms.abstractIn European dairy herds lactation curves are conventionally described by a gamma function such as that of Wood (1969). High yields in early lactation mean that more frequent calving leads to increased annual milk production (AMP) per cow. Thus, the optimum calving interval in the UK is 365 days (Esslemont et al, 1985) Studies on smallholder dairy farms in E. Africa (e.g. Omore, 1996; Staal et al., 1997) indicate that a large proportion of high-grade exotic dairy cows display lactations which collapse to a prolonged, but stable profile described by a logarithmic function. Extension services in Kenya recommend that farmers shorten their calving interval (CI) from a current average of 590 days (Staal et al., 1997) to a target of 365 days. Given the absence of high early lactation yields what benefits can be gained from the greater investment required to reduce CI on smallholdings?en
dcterms.accessRightsLimited Access
dcterms.isPartOfBSAS Occasional Publicationen
dcterms.issued1998
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherBritish Society of Animal Science
dcterms.subjectsmall farmsen
dcterms.subjectcalving intervalen
dcterms.subjectlactationen
dcterms.subjectdairy industryen
dcterms.typeConference Paper

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