JDS26031-Beiranvand et al.

Implications: Subclinical calcium (Ca) deficiency is often considered a gateway to other calving-related 5 diseases that impose substantial economic losses on the dairy business. In this study, dairy cows supplemented or not with 2 oral Ca boluses after calving were either milked 3x per day or assigned to delayed milking for 24 and 48 h after colostrum harvest.

Ca bolus administration had no effect on production performance and blood metabolites. Overall, milking withdrawal decreased daily 9 milk production during the 3 to 12 days in milk, but it did not affect the 3 monthly test day records. In addition, multiparous cows in the M48 treatment had increased blood concentrations of Ca, P and glucose and decreased those of β-hydroxybutyrate, highlighting delayed milking as a promising strategy to attenuate subclinical hypocalcemia. in the files submitted to this repository, Table 1 shows the ingredient and composition of the diets used pre-and postpartum, and a diagram is depicted to indicate the factorial design of the experiment (Fig 1).