ABSTRACT
The level of body condition has been used for years as an indicator of the nutritional status of livestock and has been used by stockmen to decide how much to feed their cattle. The technique of body-condition scoring originated in Australia for assessing fatness in sheep and was introduced into the United Kingdom for the same purpose. Information taken from the records of cows that have been slaughtered at different body-condition scores has established the relationship between the fat content of the body and condition score. The relationship between body-condition score and the energy stored in the body allows the quantification of the dietary-energy equivalent of body-condition change. Body-condition scoring offers a very satisfactory method of assessing the level of body condition. The nutritional management of beef cows can be regarded as the manipulation of the cow's body condition. In general, body condition can be allowed to fall considerably in winter when the provision of feed is expensive.
