Studies on Body Condition Scoring in Crossbred Cows

Managing a dairy herd is not an easy task. As the management strategy varies with production profile of animal, therefore, it is difficult to provide similar input to all animals in the same profile. It would, therefore, be better to develop a system which could give an idea about the status of animal at any given time. Body Condition Scoring (BSC) is a subjective, quick, non invasive, accepted and inexpensive method to asses body reserves regardless of body measurement and weight. This book was aimed to asses BCS dynamics and body measurements during production cycle of crossbred cows, correlate them and predict the production traits at different farmers in Tarai region of U.S.Nagar district of Uttarakhand.India, as a study area of the project covering 748 crossbred cows (milking and dry)from 84 days pre-partum to 183 days post-partum. A survey was also conducted to asses the animal husbandry practices in field. The results investigated that the cows having highest lactation milk yield simultaneously had highest BCS at stages 1,5,7 and 8 at parity order 2 and 4. BCS was considered as simple tool to correlate it with many production traits.