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Due to concern over nitrogen (N) emissions, this study attempted to evaluate dietary approaches to reduce N excretion by dairy cattle. Knowledge about potential N sources that were either unaccounted for or under-predicted by CPM Dairy and the Dairy NRC (2001) was used to formulate rations that were much lower in crude protein (CP) than typically fed to dairy cattle but would potentially not decrease production. Specifically, the three diets fed were predicted to have: (1) positive rumen N and metabolizable protein (MP) balances (Diet P) (2) negative MP balance and positive rumen N balance (Diet N), or (3) negative rumen N balance but positive MP balance (Diet T) as predicted by CPM Dairy version 3. The objective of this experiment was to determine whether, and to what extent, the decrease in predicted ruminally available N and MP supply would affect milk production. Eighty-eight multiparous lactating Holstein cows (83 ± 20 DIM), were blocked by average daily milk yield to 50 DIM and parity and assigned to three diets differing in N content or predicted rumen degradability of the feed N. The diets were formulate