Performance of one dairy herd in the Zambian milk recording scheme

Abstract

Milk records of 199 friesian cows, of 1988-89 were collected from Mazabuka Milk Recording Scheme. Fifty-three (53) were heifers, fifty-five were in second lactation, fifty-two were in the third, twenty-five in fourth, twelve in fifth and two were in sixth lactation. Each cow had its own cow card and production chart that showed:date of birth of the cow sire of the dam date of service and calving milk production in days recorded butterfat content of milk date of drying off date culled or died. From this information, averages of production parameters were calculated, such as lactation length lactation yield days taken to peak calving intervals