AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGY, 2015, V. 50, ¹ 4, pp. 467-475 ISSN 2412-0324 (English ed. Online) (SEL’SKOKHOZYAISTVENNAYA BIOLOGIYA) ISSN 0131-6397 (Russian ed. Print) ISSN 2313-4836 (Russian ed. Online) Productivity and herd reproduction doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2015.4.467rus doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2015.4.467eng NEW PROBABILISTIC STATISTICAL AND DYNAMIC MODELS TO CONTROL LIFE CYCLE IN LACTING COWS I.M. MIKHAILENKO , Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, 14, Grazhdansky prosp., St. Petersburg, 195220 Russia, e-mail IMikhailenko@agrophys.ru A b s t r a c t Reproduction in dairy herds recently has become increasingly important. <...> The tendency to its reduction occurs everywhere in all countries with a developed dairy husbandry. <...> On average, the number of lactations per cow is diminishing and now close to 3 while a genetic potential of many cattle breeds is over 10 lactations. <...> To resolve this issue, a theoretical base should be developed using latest progress in various related sciences. <...> The aim of the present study is the first theoretical justification for a key stage of the general concept of lactating cows’ health management, proposed in our previous paper (I.M. Mikhailenko, 2014). <...> Herein we suggest an approach to programming cow’s life cycle from the first to the last economically reasonable lactation. <...> As a result, the risk of animal culling and unnecessary costs are minimized. <...> The problem is solved for the first time in biological science. <...> At its core, this approach provides a science-based standard of animal feeding for optimized lactation during life cycle. <...> The dynamic models for lifetime annual yields reflect animal age and nutrient intake with diet, and the probabilistic statistical modeling, used to control cows’ culling due to ill health and diseases, is the most important feature of the developed approach to life-cycle control. <...> All physiological states, from a heifer to the last lactation, are considered, and all the flows within the dairy herd and possible causes for culling are identified. <...> These mathematical models allow assessing the risk of possible livestock losses, which are minimized due to optimized annual diet. <...> The developed algorithm allows to specify adjustments in annual feeding rations during the cow’s life cycle (the feeding strategies for dairy cattle <...>