Effects of Calliandra and Sesbania on Daily Milk Production in Dairy Cows on Commercial Smallholder Farms in Kenya
Table 4
Descriptive statistics for continuous variables from unconditional mixed linear regressions with associations with natural log of daily milk production for 1458 cow-visit observations from 607 farm-visits for 235 cows on 80 smallholder dairy farms near Meru, Kenya in 2016–2017.
Variable names
Mean (s.d.) in comparison group (n = 227 cow observations)
Mean (s.d.) in nutrition group (n = 434 cow observations)
Mean (s.d.) in combined group (n = 432 cow observations)
Mean (s.d.) in reproduction group (n = 365 cow observations)
value for difference in ln milk production
Amount of daily dairy meal (kg)
1.41 (0.21)
1.64 (0.12)
1.75 (0.11)
1.62 (0.09)
<0.0005
Amount of daily maize germ (kg)
0.04 (0.01)
0.00 (0.00)
0.03 (0.01)
0.01 (0.01)
0.010
Amount of daily mineral/vitamin (g)
38.59 (1.43)
39.83 (0.95)
40.60 (0.46)
30.00 (1.48)
<0.0005
Amount of daily Calliandra/Sesbania (kg)
0.00 (0.00)
0.15 (0.02)
0.11 (0.02)
0.01 (0.01)
0.002
Amount of other supplementary feed (kg)
0.56 (0.54)
0.36 (0.35)
0.27 (0.27)
0.07 (0.03)
0.071
Amount of daily maize silage (kg)
1.90 (0.56)
1.57 (0.30)
1.35 (0.34)
3.32 (0.68)
<0.0005
Body condition score
2.17 (0.08)
2.19 (0.04)
2.24 (0.04)
2.29 (0.04)
<0.007
Days in milk
313.0 (14.6)
299.3 (9.7)
248.3 (8.7)
291.6 (12.0)
<0.0005
Stall comfort score
2.68 (0.51)
3.02 (0.35)
2.91 (0.31)
3.48 (0.10)
0.102
Farm-visit level variable based on farm-visit numbers by group: comparison group n = 95 farm visits, nutrition group n = 219 farm visits, combined group n = 199 farm visits and reproduction group n = 94 farm visits.
