Livestock and Forages
Body Condition Scoring in Beef Cattle, Is It Important?
Publication Date
Winter 12-31-2019
Publication Number
LGP 1033
Summary
One very quick and easy production measure that can be assessed and analyzed to evaluate the impact of some short-term decisions is body condition score (BCS). A poor BCS or changes in BCS can indicate several things: (1) nutritive quality of grazed forages and supplemental feedstuffs: (2) potential health concerns with regard to infection, parasite load, lameness, or subacute/chronic problems that do not present obvious symptoms; and (3) other environmentally-induced stressors such as heat or fescue toxicosis. Keeping good records and monitoring BCS over time will identify problems with individual animals or overall herd-management concerns.
Target Audiences
beef cattle owners and managers
Recommended Citation
Burns MB. Body Condition Scoring in Beef Cattle, Is It Important?. Land-Grant Press by Clemson Extension. 2019; LGP 1033. http://lgpress.clemson.edu/publication/body-condition-scoring-in-beef-cattle-is-it-important/.
