Disentangling the relative roles of resource acquisition and allocation on animal feed efficiency: insights from a dairy cow model

Table 2 Outputs of model sensitivity analysis at the second lactation level

	Growth allocation			Lactation allocation			Basal acquisition			Lactation acquisition
	L	M	H	L	M	H	L	M	H	L	M	H
Age at second parturition (days)	1138	1163	1225	1144	1164	1218	1214	1167	1145	1202	1172	1153
Interval between parturitions 2–3 (days)	406	418	423	386	404	455	409	419	417	429	413	404
E_grow_lac2 (10³ MJ)	0.501	0.544	0.544	0.568	0.541	0.480	0.450	0.538	0.600	0.476	0.533	0.579
E_mobilized_lac2 (% total energy use during lac2)	1.54	1.74	2.13	1.61	1.65	2.14	1.83	1.80	1.78	2.21	1.74	1.47
Labile mass at drying 2 (kg)	137	124	115	157	125	94	113	124	139	110	125	141

Outputs correspond to measures of age at second parturition, interval between second and third parturitions, cumulative energy for growth, cumulative energy mobilized for the period between parturition and drying-off of the second lactation and labile mass at the second drying for the three levels (L: low; M: medium and H: high) of the four genetic-scaling parameters that drive allocation to growth (G2S _GEN), allocation to lactation (Pc2S _GEN), basal acquisition (AcqB _GEN) and lactation acquisition (AcqL _GEN)

ISSN: 1297-9686