Modeling of Lactation Curves of Dairy Animals

Abstract

Prasad, S. 2003. Modeling of lactation curves of dairy animals. J. Appl. Anim. Res., 24: 79–84.

A new model Y^t=a+bt+ct²+d/t to describe the lactation curve of dairy animals is proposed and compared with four existing models viz. Sikka, Neider, Wood and Mitscherlich x Exponential by using four measures of goodness of fit; R², mean square error, mean absolute error and Akaike information criterion. The proposed model fits better to four out of five data sets considered in the study than all these models and is capable to describe the real shape of lactation curves of pure and crossbred cattle and Murrah buffaloes.

Key words:

• Lactation curve model
• peak period
• peak yield
• goodness-of-fit