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Enegery balance and body condition, key drivers for a healthy herd
Schuler A., Royon F.D.
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Dairy cattle body condition and body condition scoring has long been a source of both study and debate among dairy professionals and lay people. While the scale for body condition differs depending on the country and even region, it is generally accepted that low values are equivalent to emaciation and high values are reflective of obesity. Despite a tremendous amount of literature demonstrating the effects of both overall body condition and body condition score change, widespread adoption of body condition as a documented tool for making management decisions by farmers remains relatively low.
Reproduction, production, animal health, and more recently, welfare have all been related to body condition or body condition score change. Several different reasons have been proposed for why the adoption of management strategies centered on body condition have been extremely limited. These include inconsistent training of staff on how to obtain BCS data, uncertainty on how to utilize the information when it is obtained, and a perceived lack of time by both professionals and dairymen. More recently, advancements in sensor and camera technology have helped to move subjective data measure into the objective category. Our aim with this presentation is to highlight how making body condition a key driver of decisions on the farm can improve herd health and subsequently profitability. This presentation will provide practical solutions for overcoming the challenges associated with body condition scoring in both a subjective and objective manner. It will also give examples demonstrating the benefits of tracking body condition on herd health outcomes over time regardless of the methodology used.
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About
Affiliation of the authors at the time of publication
Marshall Ridge Farms, USA;
Dellait, LLC., Brookings, USA.
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