Lactation curve

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A lactation curve (or lactation curve) describes the course of the daily milk quantity ( milk yield ) of animals, in particular of farm animals kept for milk production such as cows , sheep or goats, which can be roughly divided into four phases:

  1. At the beginning, shortly after the fruit is born, the animals have a very high milk yield. The energy output in the form of milk in this phase can be significantly higher than the absorption of energy through the feed. Therefore, considerable body reserves are mobilized. This leads to high metabolic stress . Therefore, there is often weight loss and relatively more diseases such as milk fever (calcium deficiency in the cow), ketosis (metabolic disease due to insufficient energy supply), rumen acidosis (feeding-related pH drop in the rumen), etc. During this phase, cows sometimes give over 60 liters per day.
  2. This is followed by a phase in which the milk yield slowly decreases. Here energy absorption and output are in equilibrium. The output here is 20 to 40 liters per day.
  3. In the third phase, the milk yield drops even further. Therefore, depending on how they are fed, the animals sometimes take in significantly more energy than they give off. This allows them to regain the body mass that they lost in the first phase. The milk yield here can be less than 10 liters per day.
  4. The last phase is called standing dry . If the udder is no longer emptied regularly by suckling or milking, or if the subsequent pregnancy is well advanced, the animal stops producing milk. This resting phase is necessary so that the udder , or especially the alveoli , can regenerate. This phase lasts around eight weeks in commercial dairy cow husbandry and ends with the birth of the next calf.

A graphic representation of the typical lactation in Simmental cows can be found in the literature.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A. Gerber et al.: First lactation performance and lactation curves of Simmental cattle depending on ... the farm intensity in Breeding Science 79 (2007), see graphic. P. 270 Fig. 3 (PDF; 863 kB).