Where will new techologies take milk recording? Large scale screening of the Danish dairy cattle population for their fatty acid profile

Summary

In the Danish dairy industry milk fatty acid (FA) composition has an increasing interest to develop products following new consumers’ trends. Furthermore FA profiles of the milk have the potential to be used as a management tool to predict eg the energy balance in the cow. The golden standard to measure milk fat composition is based on gas chromatography, however this method is time consuming and costly. Therefore, to be able to provide the Danish dairy industry with routine milk FA composition data, mid-infrared spectroscopy prediction models have been applied since May 2015. Aim: The aim was to quantify the factors influencing the detailed milk FA profile.