Morning, Evening and Entire Lactation Milk Yield and Composition of Jersey Cows under Hot and Humid Tropical Environment of Nigeria

This study was carried out to assess the morning, evening and entire lactation milk yield and composition of pure bred Jersey cows at a commercial feedlot dairy farm located in Edu Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria. Twelve primiparous lactating cows were selected for the experiment. Cows with similar initial daily milk yield were placed in the same treatment group. There were six treatment groups, with two cows per treatment in a completely randomized design experiment. The morning and evening milk yield, proximate and mineral composition of the milk were determined. The average morning, evening and total daily milk yield ranged from 2.46 to 7.24 kg/cow/day, 0.61 to 4.93 kg/cow/day and 2.46 to 12.17 kg/cow/day respectively. The entire lactation total milk yield ranged between 1803.50 to 2696.90 kg, and the lactation length ranged between 301 and 305 days. The average daily lactation milk yield ranged from 5.93 to 8.86 kg/cow/day. The ranges of 9.37 to 12.67 % milk protein, 4.83 to 6.07 % milk fat and 3.97 to 5.37 % lactose were observed. Magnesium (33.33 to 78.33 mg/100 g) and calcium (226.67 to 383.33 mg/100 g) constituted the lowest and highest concentrations of milk minerals. The proximate and mineral composition of the colostrum was consistently highest and decreased gradually in the early, mid and late lactation milk. The results of this work showed that the feeding of high protein grass silage and concentrate diet to Jersey cows produced high average daily milk yield up to 12.17 kg/cow/day with milk protein range of 9.37 to 12.67 % and milk fat range of 4.83 to 6.07 %.