The skinny on body condition scoring dairy cattle

collecting the data and putting it to good use

Abstract

Routinely recording the body condition score (BCS) of dairy cattle is a valuable tool for managers and consultants on the dairy. Using solid guidelines based on reputable resources, a consistent analysis may be made for the whole herd and create a data set which will show trends over time. By managing the data using a computer spreadsheet program, BCS may be sorted and examined by a variety of criteria, including days in milk (DIM), parity, stage of lactation, pen number, or any other relevant parameters. Monitoring the BCSs on a regular basis will provide an invaluable set of data that can be used to observe not only the nutritional management of the herd, but the reproductive management, welfare, and environmental conditions of the dairy as well.