Mammalian colostrum, known as "liquid gold," is considered a valuable source of essential nutrients, growth factors, probiotics, prebiotics, antibodies, and other bioactive compounds. Precisely for this reason, bovine colostrum (BC) is an emerging ingredient for the feed, food, and pharmaceutical industries, being nowadays commercially available in a variety of forms in several countries. Moreover, quite a large number of functional foods and supplements for athletes, human medicines, pet nutrition plans, and complementary feed for some livestock categories, such as piglets and calves, contain BC. The amount of BC yielded by a cow after calving represents approximately 0.5% of the yearly output in dairy breeds. For its nutritional properties and low availability, BC is characterized by a greater market value and an increasing demand compared with other by-products of the dairy sector. However, information regarding the market size of BC for the food and pharmaceutical industries, as well as future developments and perspectives, is scarcely available in the scientific literature. This lack can be attributed to industrial secrecy as well as to the relatively small scale of the BC business when compared with other dairy products, which makes the BC market limited, specific, and intended for a restricted audience. From a legal perspective, regulations assign BC to the large family of milk-derived powders; thus, collecting specific production data, as well as import-export trend information, is not straightforward and can result in unprecise estimates. Given that the interest in BC is increasing in different fields, it is important to have an overview of the production steps and of pros and cons of this emerging ingredient. The present narrative review discloses why BC has started to be considered a product rather than a by-product of the dairy industry. Moreover, the present document aims to summarize the existing methodologies used to assess BC quality in terms of immunoglobulin concentration, the different applications of BC in the industry, and the BC processing technologies. Finally, a panoramic view of the current international market is provided for the first time for this dairy product.

There are currently few published estimates of genetic parameters for lactose yield or lactose percentage for dairy cows. Recent trends in milk standardisation for whole milk powder have resulted in whole milk being standardised with the ratio of protein to protein‐plus‐lactose of at least 0.39. Currently whole milk powder produced from New Zealand milk has a protein to protein‐plus‐lactose ratio of 0.43, thus requiring additional lactose to be imported to maximise the return from the current product portfolio. Estimates of genetic parameters were obtained using 15,366 test day records from 4378 first‐lactation cows in the Livestock Improvement Corporation sire proving scheme in the 2011–12 dairy season, distributed across 70 herds. These data included milk, fat, protein and lactose yields; fat, protein and lactose percentages; somatic cell count; days in milk; and the protein to fat ratio and protein to protein‐plus‐lactose ratio. Mean milk yield was 13.8 L/day, containing 5.16% fat, 3.93% protein and 5.12% lactose. Heritability estimates were 0.22, 0.35, 0.32 and 0.25 for milk yield, fat, protein and lactose percentages, respectively, which were lower than those reported in the literature but enough to allow for selection of lactose percentage.

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic correlations among milk fatty acid (FA) concentrations in New Zealand dairy cattle. Concentrations of each of the most common FA, expressed as a percentage of the total FA, were determined by gas chromatography on a specific cohort of animals. Using this data set, prediction equations were derived using mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy data collected from the same samples. These prediction equations were applied to a large data set of MIR measurements in 34,141 milk samples from 3,445 Holstein-Friesian, 2,935 Jersey, and 3,609 crossbred Holstein-Friesian × Jersey cows, sampled an average of 3.42 times during the 2007-2008 season. Data were analyzed using univariate and bivariate repeatability animal models. Heritability of predicted FA concentration in milk fat ranged from 0.21 to 0.42, indicating that genetic selection could be used to change the FA composition of milk. The de novo synthesized FA (C6:0, C8:0, C10:0, C12:0, and C14:0) showed strong positive genetic correlations with each other, ranging from 0.24 to 0.99. Saturated FA were negatively correlated with unsaturated (-0.93) and polyunsaturated (-0.84) FA. The saturated FA were positively correlated with milk fat yield and fat percentage, whereas the unsaturated FA were negatively associated with fat yield and fat percentage. Our results indicate that bovine milk FA composition can be changed through genetic selection using MIR as a phenotypic proxy.

The current New Zealand greenhouse gas inventory predictions assume that dairy cows consume pasture only, but the use of supplemental feeds, including concentrates, on New Zealand dairy farms has increased greatly in recent decades. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of feeding graded levels of concentrates on methane (CH ₄ ) emissions in lactating dairy cows within a pastoral system. Early lactation dairy cows ( n = 72) were allocated ( n = 18 per treatment) to receive 0, 2, 4 and 6 kg dry matter (DM) of treatment concentrates per day during milking. The cows grazed pasture ad libitum and CH ₄ emissions were measured in the paddocks using automated emissions monitoring systems called ‘GreenFeed’. Gross CH ₄ emissions (g/d) were similar for cows across the four dietary treatments, while CH ₄ emissions intensity (g/kg fat and protein corrected milk production (FPCM) and milk solids production) linearly decreased with increasing concentrate inclusion in the diet ( P < 0.02). The CH ₄ intensity decreased linearly ( r ² = 0.42) and quadratically ( r ² = 0.53) with increasing FPCM production.

The accurate measurement of herbage mass is essential for feed budgeting and the management of sustainable and profitable grazing systems. There are many techniques available to estimate herbage mass in pastoral systems, and these vary in accuracy, cost, and time taken to implement. In situ and remote sensing techniques are both associated with moderate to high error, as herbage mass is affected by a number of dependent and independent factors, including sward composition, soil structure, chemical characteristics and moisture levels, climatic conditions, and grazing management, which must be considered in the development of an accurate local calibration model for precise estimation of herbage mass. This review provides an overview of commonly used herbage mass assessment techniques and describes their limitations, synergies, and trade-offs, and also covers the integration of new technologies which have the potential to monitor pastures at scale. This review highlights the need for further research and to integrate new technologies for accurate and precise measurement of herbage mass, noting the lack of calibration with in situ methods, the need for development of new protocols for assessment, variance in equipment and software compatibility, and the need to evaluate the effectiveness of methods/techniques on a variety of livestock operations for extended periods.

Milk composition can vary significantly among individual cows and breeds, and the dairy products that can be made from that milk are limited by available milk components. The objective of this research was to estimate genetic and crossbreeding parameters for lactation yields of milk, fat, protein and lactose, and use these to determine potential yields of dairy products from New Zealand dairy cattle. A mass‐balance milk‐processing model was used to estimate yields of milk products for 4310 first lactation heifers that produced milk in the 2010–2011 dairy season. Estimates of heritability for yields of whole and skim milk powders were moderate (0.31). Heterosis effects for product yield per lactation was significant only for cheese and butter production ( P < 0.05). The use of genetic parameters and correlations for dairy product yield could increase the rate of gain for specific product yields, but have to be evaluated in conjunction with other traits of interest in breeding worth.