Dairy cow dry matter intake for multiverse analysis and Bradley-Terry modeling

The palatability of feed for dairy cows is an important consideration but is difficult to measure, particularly when considering more than two feeds. We outline how a combination of multiverse analysis and Bradley-Terry modeling, two methodological tools that have rarely been applied in dairy science, can be adapted to address this problem. Specifically, we propose to apply multiverse analysis as a way to consider a range of thresholds for how much of a mixed grass-legume (MGL) silage had to be consumed (as a percent of the total DMI) to be designated as preferred. Each threshold gives rise to a separate dataset and a corresponding fitted Bradley-Terry model. Bradley-Terry models attribute to each feed what is commonly referred to as an “ability” in the context of sports or other competitions but can be interpreted as palatability when applied to feeds. This combined approach is a way of estimating palatabilities that appropriately reflect the degree of preference cows express through t..., Both experimental setup and statistical methodology are described in the accompanying publication. The accompanying R script also provides details of the statistical methodology., , # Dairy cow dry matter intake for multiverse analysis and Bradley-Terry modeling

This dataset originates from a study conducted at the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute (Chazy, NY) during summer 2021. Feed from two bunks (that is, two ensiling conditions) and from two aerobic exposure times (0 and 48 hours) were considered, for a total of four feed types. The four feed types were offered to twelve heifers in a pairwise fashion (4 types = 6 pairwise comparisons). The observations consist of the dry matter intake of each heifer by feed type and day. This dataset is being employed as a testbed for an statistical analysis approach consisting of multiverse analysis and Bradley-Terry modeling.

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset consists of a single CSV file (dry_matter_intake_for_multiverse_and_bt.csv). The unit of observation is a feed offered on a particular day to a particular cow. That is, each row is \"half\" of one pairwise comparison. There are ...