Body Condition Score Simplified

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. You are listening to the Ag Information Network.

Today, a discussion about body condition scores in cattle. We are talking to Extension Beef Cattle Specialist Dr. Megan Van Emon...

"So body condition score in basic is a scale of 1 to 9. One being extremely thin and 9 being extremely obese. You know, those ones are usually those that probably aren't walking anymore, you know they're very sick or appear to be very sick. And those nines, they're probably struggling to get around as well but for the completely opposite reason of having a little bit too much fat cover on them."

As a woman, I know that I notice a change in my body condition score when I'm gaining weight a lot more quickly than when I'm losing it, but Megan says that's not the case when it comes to livestock.

"You know, we probably see it a little bit quicker as those animals drop weight than if they're adding that weight back on. It seems to take forever to add that weight back on versus them dropping that body condition."

Whether you're going up the scale or down the scale, Dr. Van Emon says that the difference between one body condition score and the next on a cow is around 100 and 150 pounds. She stressed that the time that we really need to make sure that the cows are in optimum condition is going to be during breeding.