Effect of straw particle size on the behavior, health, and production of early-lactation dairy cows
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine the effect of reducing the particle size of wheat straw in a total mixed ration (TMR) on cow behavior, health, and production in early lactation. For 28 d after calving, 41 multiparous Holstein cows were individually provided either 1 of 2 TMR with 9% wheat straw (dry matter basis) chopped (1) using a 2.54-cm screen (short; n = 21) or (2) using a 5.08-cm screen (long; n = 20). Cows were housed in freestall pens during both the dry and lactating period. Enrollment in the trial was on a rolling basis and cows were evenly distributed by parity and milk production between treatments. Wireless telemetry boluses were used to measure reticulorumen pH. Automated systems recorded TMR dry matter intake, milk yield, and rumination activity. The TMR and orts samples were collected every 3 d to determine feed sorting. A particle separator was used to separate feed samples into 4 fractions: long (>19 mm), medium (<19 mm, >8 mm), short (<8 mm, >4 mm), and fine (<4 mm) particles. Feed sorting was calculated as actual intake of each particle fraction expressed as a percentage of its predicted intake. Cows sorted the longest TMR particles differently by treatment; on the long treatment cows sorted against long particles (94.2 ± 1.9%), whereas on the short treatment cows did not sort for or against these particles (99.7 ± 1.9%). Data were analyzed in mixed-effect linear regression models and fitted with polynomial functions over the 28 d of observations. The fitted data indicated treatment differences in linear coefficients, quadratic coefficients, and cubic coefficients for mean time (min/d) below a reticulorumen pH of 5.8 and milk yield. Rumination time (min/d) differed between treatments for quadratic and cubic coefficients. Cows on the short treatment linearly increased in dry matter intake at a greater rate than cows on the long treatment. Mean reticulorumen pH decreased at a greater rate for cows on the long treatment than for cows on the short, as indicated by differences between linear coefficients. Cows on the short treatment tended to produce 75 kg more milk cumulatively during the first 28 d in milk than cows on long treatment. These results suggest that cows fed a diet with longer straw particles selected against physically effective fiber, which may have contributed to greater fluctuations in rumination time, reticulorumen pH, dry matter intake, and milk production in early lactation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".