Nitrogen partitioning and microbial protein synthesis in lactating dairy cows with different phenotypic residual feed intake

BACKGROUND: Residual feed intake (RFI) is an inheritable measure of feed efficiency that is independent on level of production. However, physiological and metabolic mechanisms underlying divergent RFI are not fully elucidated. This study was conducted to investigate dietary nitrogen (N) partitioning and microbial protein synthesis in lactating dairy cows divergent in phenotypic RFI. RESULTS: Thirty Holstein dairy cows (milk yield = 35.3 ± 4.71 kg/d; milk protein yield = 1.18 ± 0.13 kg/d; mean ± standard deviation) were selected for the experiment to derive RFI. After the RFI measurement period of 50 d, the 10 lowest RFI cows and 8 highest RFI cows were selected. The low RFI cows had lower dry matter intake (DMI, P < 0.05) than the high RFI cows, but they produced similar energy-corrected milk. The ratios of milk to DMI (1.41 vs. 1.24, P < 0.01) and energy-corrected milk to DMI (1.48 vs. 1.36, P < 0.01) were greater in low RFI cows than those in the high RFI cows. The low RFI cows had lower milk urea nitrogen than that in the high RFI cows (P = 0.05). Apparent digestibility of nutrients did not differ between two groups (P > 0.10). Compared with high RFI animals, the low RFI cows had a lower retention of N (5.72 vs. 51.4 g/d, P < 0.05) and a higher partition of feed N to milk N (29.7% vs. 26.5%, P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that differences in N partition, synthesis of microbial protein, and utilization of metabolizable protein could be part of the mechanisms associated with variance in the RFI. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40104-019-0356-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.