Milk Yield – A Criterion of Herd Adaptability to Grazing Conditions

The objective of the study is to determine the influence of various climatic factors on cow productivity in order to develop specific adaptation measures to mitigate their negative impact. The research material was daily data on temperature, air humidity, daily milk yield, and precipitation during the grazing period. The studies were conducted at the Lenintsy breeding farm in the Maisky District of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic on a herd of Red Steppe cattle (700 dairy cows, milk yield for 2024 – 7,051 kg from May 1 to September 30, 2017 to 2024). A comparative analysis of the amount of precipitation was performed – daily, by ten-day period, and on average for each month of the grazing period (May – September). The period 2017–2024 showed that the average annual precipitation was 294.5 mm, with fluctuations from 191 mm (2020) to 510 mm (2021). Over the 1,200 days of analysis, the proportion of days with low air humidity values of up to 53 % was 104 days, or 8.7 %, and exceeded the number of days with high (over 87.1 %) humidity by 23 days. In the months of May and June, the average daily milk yield at high humidity was significantly (P ≤ 0.05) 1,172.2 and 12,040.0 kg higher, respectively, and in the months of July it was 557.0 kg higher than the low values. On average, over the 1,200-day study period, the average daily milk yield above average was achieved on 291 days (24.2 %), amounting to 13,008.3 kg, while the minimum daily milk yield was 12,346.8 kg, achieved on 271 days (22.6 %), a difference of 661.5 kg. Annual milk losses during the grazing period amounted to 22.4 tons.