ABSTRACT: Feed is a major cost in dairy production, and substantial genetic variation in feed efficiency exists between cows. Therefore, breeders aim to improve feed efficiency of dairy cattle. However, phenotypic data on individual feed intake on commercial farms is scarce, and accurate measurements are very costly. Several studies have shown that information from Fourier-transformed infrared spectra of milk samples (milk infrared, milk IR) can be used to predict phenotypes such as energy balance and energy intake, but this is usually based on small data sets obtained under experimental circumstances. The added value of information from milk IR spectra for estimation of breeding values is unknown. The objectives of this study were (1) to develop prediction equations for dry matter intake (DMI) and residual DMI (rDMI) from milk IR spectra; (2) to apply these for a data set of milk IR spectra from commercial Dutch dairy farms; (3) to estimate genetic parameters for these traits; and (4) to estimate correlations between these predictions and other traits in the breeding goal. We used data from feeding trials where individual feed intake was recorded daily and for which milk IR spectra were determined weekly to develop prediction equations for DMI and rDMI with partial least squares regression. This data set contained over 7,600 weekly averaged DMI records linked with milk IR spectra from 271 cows. The equations were applied for a data set with test day information from 676 Dutch dairy herds with 621,567 records of 78,488 cows. Both milk IR-predicted DMI and rDMI were analyzed with an animal model to obtain genetic parameters and sire effect estimates that could be correlated with breeding values. A partial least squares regression model with 10 components from the milk IR spectra explained around 25% of DMI variation and less than 10% of rDMI variation in the validation set. Nearly all variation in the milk IR spectra was captured by 7 components; additional components contributed marginally to the spectral ...