Limits to Milk Production Efficiency by the Dairy Cow

This paper identifies limits to milk production efficiency by the dairy cow and suggests researchable areas that might reduce one or more of the limits identified. Increasing milk yield per cow will improve overall milk production efficiency, and the removal of non-nutritional factors that limit total milk yield per cow will have the beneficial effect of increasing milk production efficiency. Variation in the efficiency of digestion is a significant limitation on milk production efficiency and holds the greatest promise for significant improvement in the foreseeable future. The prevention of reduced digestive efficiency associated with high intake is a realistic research area. Improvement in efficiency of utilization of metabolizable energy does not appear to be a likely area for significant progress in the near future. However, research on factors that regulate the partitioning of metabolizable energy available for production between milk and body tissue holds promise for significant progress.