Intergenerational effects of the pre-conception period on the number of services required by the daughter in dairy cows
Abdelkader A. Ameur, Roger I. Cue, Marc-André Sirard
TL;DR
This study shows that the health and milk production of dairy cows before getting pregnant can affect how fertile their daughters are later in life.
Contribution
The study reveals a novel link between pre-conception energy balance in dams and fertility outcomes in their daughters.
Findings
Daughters of high-yielding dams required more services for conception than those of low-yielding dams.
Multiparous dams produced daughters requiring fewer services, suggesting improved fertility with lactation number.
Daughters in their first lactation needed fewer services than in later lactations, showing declining fertility with age.
Abstract
This study investigated how the metabolic status of dairy cow dams during the pre-conception period influences the fertility of their daughters. Using a large dataset from Lactanet Canada (2008–2023), we analyzed whether cumulative milk yield deviations—used as a proxy for energy balance—during the 40 days before conception were associated with the number of services required for conception across four daughter lactations. A linear mixed model incorporating milk yield deviations was employed. Results showed that daughters of high-yielding dams required more services (2.25) compared to those of low-yielding dams (2.15), suggesting impaired fertility associated with elevated maternal production. Additionally, daughters of multiparous dams required fewer services, indicating potential selection for fertility with increasing dam lactation number. Days in milk (DIM) at dam conception were…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10
Figure 11Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsReproductive Physiology in Livestock · Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock · Gestational Diabetes Research and Management