Just as identifying plants is the baseline skill for rangeland professionals, the ability to assess the condition of grazing livestock by observing them is critical to their effective management. Body condition is really just the amount of fat and thus, energy storage available for a free-ranging animal. This makes it an important indicator of the overall health and well-being of herbivores both wild and domestic. Body condition is often related to reproductive performance. Thin cows do not breed back as effectively as cows in better condition. Calves from thin cows gain less than calves from dams in better shape. Body condition is also an indicator of range conditions and management.
If you grew up around livestock, determinations of body condition are second nature. But for those in the range profession who do not come from a livestock background, visually assessing animal body condition can be intimidating. It is not difficult to tell a fat cow from a skinny one, but when discussing the condition of a group of range cows and you hear that “the black cow 2103 is a 5 and the red cow 3996 is a 4”; you may or may not see the differences between those two animals that a more experienced person is seeing. You may not even understand what a score of 4 or 5 represents. The objective of this publication is to provide you with information to help make those detailed assessments yourself.