Literature Review Assignment: Dairy Family In Australia

Question

Task :
Outline: For one aspect of dairy production systems, write a detailed literature review on the topic. You may draw on the material presented in the lectures and field trips as a starting point for your review, but you are expected to access the scientific material in greater depth. Your review should discuss:

Some examples of topics include:

• Reproduction efficiency of dairy cattle
• Review of management for a specific animal health issue
• Greenhouse gas emissions from dairy production systems
• Forage options for dairy systems
• Nutrient use efficiency on dairy farms
• Use of milk shed technology on dairy farms (eg automatic milking systems)
• AnimaI breeding objectives for dairy
• Pasture management for dairy

The following criteria will be used to assess this assignment:

1. The relevance of the topic to the dairy industry is clearly explained.
2. Relevant literature has been comprehensively covered.
3. The arguments presented are evidence based.
4. The document has a logical structure.

Your review should discuss:

• why the issue is important to the Australian dairy industry,
• what is currently known about the issue,
• what is not known, and
• what you think are the priority areas for research and/or implementation on farm.

Answer

Introduction
In the dairy farming of Australia, the dairy farmers have to increase the productivity to ensure the sufficient supply of dairy products in the Australian market. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the dairy production. In the past 40 years, there is been an extensive research going on the production of the Dairy cows, to improve the product in the Australian market (Australia, 2017).

This Literature Review Assignment focuses on the reproduction efficiency of dairy cattle. By improving this, the dairy farmers can fulfil the demands of the market. In this Literature Review Assignment, there are several points that have been discussed to understand the report better, like the importance of reproduction efficiency of dairy cattle is important for the Australian dairy industries. Apart from that, the current issue that exists regarding the Reproduction efficiency, that are unknown issues of the reproduction efficiency of the dairy cattle and the things that should be applied on the farm to improve the reproduction efficiency.

Literature Review
Importance of the Reproduction Efficiency of Dairy Cattle
Many factors determine the efficiency of the dairy herd that is the amount of milk is sold per day. However, the reproductive efficiency or the reproductive performance is one of the major contributors (Australia, 2014).

In the Australian dairy industries, it is necessary to maintain the daily milk production. In the dairy cows, it has been seen that the yielding of kinds of milk goes high in the first 100-200 days, later on, the lactation goes down. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the flow of the production. To maintain the production the cow must have to calve at regular intervals. The reproduction influences in the duration of milk production at the first stage calving and it depends on the percentage that the cows spend in the early months of the lactation. In the figure1, the lactation curve has been shown. The productions jump higher in the first six to ten weeks after the calving and the high level of lactation went high and it was maintained at the same pace for few weeks (Australia, 2014). The half of the production of lactation is done in the first 120 days. By this time, the cow generates the highest profit for the dairy. That means the cow will be at her "break-even point" which means the cost of the production and the revenue that generates by the milk production, both will be equal. By this, it can understand if the cow has become pregnant regularly the profit will be higher (Australia, 2016).

Figure 1: The Lactation Curve
Source: (Morton et al. 2016)

It is important to look into the good reproductive efficiency in the dairy cattle. Moreover, to understand the importance of the economic performance of the Australian dairy industries and to measure the performance of the dairy industries it should be understood that reproductive performance is also required to measure by the open days of the cattle, their calving intervals, and the conception of the pregnancy rates. If the rate of calving increases, that means the average days of the milk for the herd will increase as well, which is not a good sign for the dairy's as because the longer the herd will be on the average days in milk, the lower herd average of the daily milk production (Barkema et al., 2015).

Figure 2: Average day milk and the daily milk production
Source: (Cook et al., 2016)

If the calving intervals are getting longer that means only a few claves will be born in the lifetime of the cow, which will be less productive. The inefficiency in the reproduction will continue that means the production of the milk will be lesser than expected and the income of the Australian dairy industries will be less. It can be assumed that the production rates will be lower and it signifies, the cow will produce fewer claves in the entire lifetime and the dairy farmers have to replace the young cow. On the other hand, if the Australian dairy industries want to maximize the herd profitability, the companies must maintain the high level of the reproductive efficiency (Harris, 2016).

Current Scenario of Reproductive Efficiency in Australia
The Australian dairy industries is the prime focused and researched component on the work of reproduction efficiency by the making the genetic strategies to improve the reproduction. Breeding programmes also include the fertility and the health as the part of the traits. The Australians dairy industries are making the genetic discoveries with the help of the Australian government improve the productivity of the cows or the dairy cattle’s (Morton et. al. 2016). Many opportunities are arising in front of the dairy farmers to incorporate with the breeding programmes. By the help of these programmes, they can improve the production of milk. However, if the farmers do not get proper knowledge about these technologies, the farmers will eventually not get benefit from it.

New tools have been introduced to improve the fertility among the dairy cattle’s. Like there is a development in the glycan makers for the uterine health. This glycan can identify the cows, which are having the retained placental membranes. Apart from that, a study has been shown that if the cows are getting enough nutrients then the healthy cow can produce the high number of lactation. As well as the healthy cow can produce more calves, thus the nutrients need to be sufficient for the cows to increase the productivity of the cows (Knapp et al., 2014).

The Australian dairy industries are also focusing on the controlling infectious diseases, which affect the cow's health. The veterinarians are helping the dairy industries by regularly checking the cow's health status. Infections like Leptospira Hardjo, herpes viruses or the viral diarrhoea are very well known for their reduction of the conception rates (Miyama et. al., 2018). Some virus can affect the pregnancy of the cows' and lead them to abortions. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the health of the cows and provide the appropriate bio security plans to prevent these diseases. These diseases can spread to the herd, which will be dangerous for the whole dairy farm (Senthilkumar, 2018)

Apart from those new technologies helps the farmers to understand the metabolism mechanism and reproduction criteria of cows in a better way. As there are many cows in the farm. The companies are putting the sensors as well as the tags to each cow to understand and make a count of the herds. As the sensors help the caretaker to monitors every step, that the cow is taken and there is another technology to check if the cow is ready to give birth to the calves or not. The dairy companies always separate the healthy pregnant cows to one particular area if the date of delivery is near. As the cows automatically processed to the labour room, the company can easily locate the cow and help the cow to give birth to healthy calves. These new technologies help the dairy industries to reduce the risk of the loss of the calves (Harris, 2016).

Gap in Literature
The Australian dairy industries are getting weak in terms of their income. There are many new technologies, which have introduced to the farms. However, the farm's owner does not get all the information and the technologies to their farm, as a result, the dairy owners are not able to cope up with the demands of the markets. Reproductions are one of the important factors of the Australian dairy farms and the industries are not sharing the new technologies for the dairy farmers.

The milk production is being decreased due to lack of using advanced technologies and the Australian dairy industry is going behind in the international market. Due to the negligence of many reproduction methods and other advanced technologies, the Australian farmers are getting affected. Due to improper reproduction and lack of marketing, the farmers do not get sufficient money for their efforts. This kind of financial crisis is also affecting the family of the farmers and the health of the cows as they are not getting enough nutritious food for their diets. Because of this incident, the cows do not produce enough milk and their metabolism affects the reproduction of the calves. The, as well as Australian Government, should take some initiatives to improve the financial conditions (Australia, 2017).

Areas for Priority and Implementation Steps on Farm
Many factors can affect the reproduction efficiency of the cows. The farm owners must understand the relationship between the heat stress and the reproductions. During the first several days of the pregnancy, the cows are very much vulnerable to the diseases and the metabolic disorders (Borchers and Bewley 2015). Therefore, the farmers must take care of the cows as these can affect the cow’s reproduction efficiency.

Many of the dairy farmers still use the natural way to produce the calves. Until now many experiments have been done to improve the reproduction of these cattle. The semen sample of the male animal can be stored in a normal temperature that it can be kept safe for a long time (Randi et. al. 2018). Later these secured products can be used for reproduction purpose. However, the quality should remain good for breeding new good breed. It is the process of natural fertilization. Further, Timed Artificial Insemination (TAI) also can be applied to reproduce cattle. In this technique, the experiments should be done on a timely basis. With this technology, a significant amount of milk can be produced. However, it has some adverse impacts such as stress due to heat, embryo development (Martin-Collado et, al., 2015).

Embryo Manipulation is another popular technique that can be used to improve pregnancy rates. Generally, this method is performed during the summer months (Nevoral and Sutovsky 2017). Embry transfer into lactic cows can increase the milk production. The connectional risk is about 27% in this process. Various steps are followed in this technique, such as timed transfer, embryo freezing and lowering the cost of embryos. Sometimes hormonal treatments are also practiced to improve the milk production.

Conclusion
The overall conclusion of the Literature Review Assignment is that reproduction of dairy animals can increase the significant amount of milk productions. The reproduction rate of the dairy animal can be improved by feeding healthy foods. Additionally, various technologies can be applied to improve the production rate of the dairy animal and as a result, the overall production of milk will increase drastically. The Australian dairy industry is one of the largest suppliers of milk (after New Zealand) and so they need many alternatives to grow their milk production. It is observed in this Literature Review Assignment achieve this goal, the farmers are doing various kinds of experiments such as hormonal exchange, embryo transfers and semen transfer with their animals. These strategies increase the milk production up to a certain extent. Due to improper marketing and less production of milk, the financial conditions of the farmers are getting affected. This kind of crisis results in the reproduction rate of cows and also effects the milk production. It is further recommended to feed high-quality supplementary foods to improve their health and as result, they can produce more milk. Literature review assignments are being prepared by our best marketing assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable help with assignments online service.

Reference
Australia, D., 2014. Australian dairy industry in focus 2014. Dairy Australia.

Australia, D., 2014. Effluent and Manure Management Database for the Australian Dairy Industry, 2008. Southbank Victoria, 3006.

Australia, D., 2016. Australian dairy industry sustainability framework.

Australia, D., 2017. Dairy Situation and Outlook, June 2017: Report to the Australian Dairy Industry. Dairy Australia, 27.

Barkema, H.W., Von Keyserlingk, M.A.G., Kastelic, J.P., Lam, T.J.G.M., Luby, C., Roy, J.P., LeBlanc, S.J., Keefe, G.P. and Kelton, D.F., 2015. Invited review: Changes in the dairy industry affecting dairy cattle health and welfare. Journal of Dairy Science, 98(11), pp.7426-7445.

Borchers, M.R. and Bewley, J.M., 2015. An assessment of producer precision dairy farming technology use, prepurchase considerations, and usefulness. Journal of dairy science, 98(6), pp.4198-4205.

Cook, N.B., Hess, J.P., Foy, M.R., Bennett, T.B. and Brotzman, R.L., 2016. Management characteristics, lameness, and body injuries of dairy cattle housed in high-performance dairy herds in Wisconsin. Journal of dairy science, 99(7), pp.5879-5891.

Harris, D., 2016. Policy Design and Industry Development Plans: Dairy Industry Experiences in Asia and Australia. In CRUCIAL AGRICULTURAL POLICY: Analysis of Key Threats to Food Security (pp. 235-271).

Knapp, J.R., Laur, G.L., Vadas, P.A., Weiss, W.P. and Tricarico, J.M., 2014. Invited review: Enteric methane in dairy cattle production: Quantifying the opportunities and impact of reducing emissions. Journal of Dairy Science, 97(6), pp.3231-3261.

Martin-Collado, D., Byrne, T.J., Amer, P.R., Santos, B.F.S., Axford, M. and Pryce, J.E., 2015. Analyzing the heterogeneity of farmers’ preferences for improvements in dairy cow traits using farmer typologies. Journal of dairy science, 98(6), pp.4148-4161.

Miyama, T., Watanabe, E., Ogata, Y., Urushiyama, Y., Kawahara, N. and Makita, K., 2018. Herd-level risk factors associated with Leptospira Hardjo infection in dairy herds in the southern Tohoku, Japan. Preventive veterinary medicine, 149, pp.15-20.

Morton, J.M., Auldist, M.J., Douglas, M.L. and Macmillan, K.L., 2016. Associations between milk protein concentration at various stages of lactation and reproductive performance in dairy cows. Journal of dairy science, 99(12), pp.10044-10056.

Nevoral, J. and Sutovsky, P., 2017. Epigenome modification and ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis during the pronuclear development of the mammalian zygote: animal models to study pronuclear development. Animal models and human reproduction (ed. H Schatten and GM Constantinescu), pp.435-466.

Randi, F., Sánchez, J.M., Herlihy, M.M., Valenza, A., Kenny, D.A., Butler, S.T., and Lonergan, P., 2018. Effect of equine chorionic gonadotropin treatment during a progesterone-based timed artificial insemination program on reproductive performance in seasonal-calving lactating dairy cows. Journal of dairy science.

Senthilkumar, S., 2018. Adoption of innovative dairy farming technology in the farmer’s field. Asian J. Dairy & Food Res, 37(1), pp.26-27.