Derivation of the maintenance energy requirements and efficiency of metabolizable energy utilization for dry and lactating Jersey cows.

ABSTRACT Maintenance energy is the energy required to conserve the state of an animal when no work is completed. Dietary energy must be supplied to meet maintenance requirements before milk can be produced. The objectives of the current experiment were to quantify the maintenance energy requirement of Jersey cows when lactating or dry. Energetic measures were collected on 8 Jersey cows and evaluated across 3 physiological phases and nutritional planes: lactation, dry cows fed at maintenance, and fasted dry cows. Through total collection of feces and urine as well as using headbox-style indirect calorimeters, energy balance and heat production data were measured across all phases. Lactation data were collected across four 28-d periods. Data for cows fed at maintenance were collected after 14 d and fasting heat production was measured during the last 24 h of a 96-h fast. Net energy for maintenance (NEM) requirements, and the efficiency of converting metabolizable energy (ME) into net energy were compared between lactating and dry (maintenance or fasting phase) cows. Heat production of dry cows fed at maintenance, which represents ME for maintenance, was 0.146 ± 0.0087 Mcal per unit of metabolic body weight (BW0.75, MBW). Fasting heat production, which represents NEM, was 0.102 ± 0.0071 Mcal/MBW. Energy balance was calculated as tissue energy plus milk energy. When estimated via regressing energy balance on ME intake, NEM was not different between dry and lactating cows (0.120 ± 0.32 vs. 0.103 ± 0.0052 Mcal/MBW). However, the slope of the regression of energy balance on ME intake was greater for dry compared with lactating cows (0.714 ± 0.046 vs. 0.685 ± 0.010) when evaluated with a fixed intercept. This suggests that dry cows were more efficient at converting ME into net energy and that the efficiency of utilizing ME for maintenance may be greater than for lactation. Our measurements of NEM and the slope of ME on energy balance were greater than the value used by the National Research Council (2001), which are 0.080 Mcal/MBW for NEM and approximately 0.64 for the slope. Results of this study suggest that NEM and the efficiency of converting ME into NEM of modern lactating Jersey cows are similar to recent measurements on modern Holstein cows and greater than previous measurements.