Two methods of estimating body fat in vivo in cattle, namely measurement of body water by dilution of deuterium oxide and subcutaneous adipose-cell size, were studied in mature cows and compared with a classical method based on dissection of a sample joint.

Total body fat, measured after complete dissection of 12 dry cows, varied between 64 and 185g/kg body weight. Rib fat and adipose-cell diameter were related positively, while body water was related negatively to total body fat. The equations for prediction of total body fat were sufficiently accurate (s.d. = 10·1 to 11·5 g total body fat per kg body weight) to warrant further examination, and adipose-cell diameter was as accurate as body water.

Forty-eight Hereford × Friesian cows and their South Devon calves were paddock grazed at high or low stocking rates of 412 or 206 cows and calves per ha in experiment 1, and either paddock grazed or set stocked at high or low stocking rates of 4·12 or 2·74 cows and calves per ha in experiments 2 to 4.

There was no significant effect of grazing system on milk yield, milk composition or calf growth but in experiment 2 paddock-grazed cows gained more weight than those set stocked. Cows at low stocking rates gained more weight than those at high stocking rates and, in general, gave more milk. Calf growth rates were also higher at low stocking rates in experiments 1, 3 and 4 but not in experiment 2. Milk composition was not significantly affected by stocking rate. There were substantial increases in calf live-weight gain per ha at the high stocking rate but, because of a lower gain by cows, the differences in total live-weight gains per ha for cows and calves were much smaller.

The 305-day lactation milk yields and the numbers of inseminations required to obtain a pregnancy during a particular lactation were obtained from 1475 lactations of 808 daughters of eight bulls, whose Improved Contemporary Comparisons spanned two genetic standard deviations of milk yield. All lactations were completed before September 1978. Cattle requiring more than one insemination for a pregnancy produced 173 (standard error of difference = 55) kg more milk in 305 days than those requiring only one. There was no correlation between the Improved Contemporary Comparisons of the sire and either the difference in yield, or the proportion of animals needing one or those needing more than one insemination per pregnancy.

Groups of Hereford-cross steers weighing 283 kg were given 0·6 kg dry matter hay per head per day, and bruised barley supplemented with 40 g of a fully soluble liquid product per kg, containing urea, minerals and vitamins, ad libitum. Half the animals received 10 g limestone per kg diet as an additional supplement. Over a 105-day period the food intake of the limestone-supplemented animals was 0·20 higher than that of unsupplemented animals. The resultant daily live-weight gain was 1·22 kg compared with 0·92 kg for the animals receiving the diet containing no additional limestone. Food conversion ratios (kg/kg live-weight gain) were improved by limestone supplementation from 6·84 to 6·19. Limestone inclusion did not appear to influence the low concentrations of starch (ca. 15 g/kg) present in the faecal dry matter but there was a small significant difference in faecal pH.

Data from three comparative slaughter experiments involving a total of 73 ewes were used to study the influence of body fat content at the start of lactation (X1 kg) and of metabolizable energy intake (X2, MJ/day), on the rate of loss of body fat by lactating ewes over the first 6 weeks of lactation (Y, g/day). The relationship was described by the equation:

Thus the rate of fat loss was greater for ewes with higher initial fat contents, but the differential became less as metabolizable energy intake increased. Since increases in body fatness depress food intake it was not possible to prevent loss of body fat during early lactation in fat ewes given high concentrate diets ad libitum. The likely response in milk yield to increase in body fatness at parturition is therefore strongly dependent on the relative levels of body fatness and metabolizable energy intake. The value of any improvement in condition of the ewe at parturition may be considerable when metabolizable energy intake during lactation is low but much less when it is expected to be high.