Examine cattle

Examining cattle is the process of assessing cattle either visually or manually.

Examination involves a number of physical assessments such as maturity frames, temperament, dentition/ageing, feet and leg structure, body condition score, fat score and muscling. All these aspects demonstrate different physical statesof the animal.

Maturity Frames
Maturity frames are measures the hip height from a level surface. Maturity is the age and weight at which an animal fattens. It allows you know about the growth potential.

The frame scores describes the skeletal size of the animal. Most animals should maintain the same frame score throughout their lives, while the actual height increases with age.

Temperament
Temperament is all about the animal's behaviour and its response to human handling. In most cases, badly tempered animals pose a serious risk to humans. Therefore, you would cull the bad ones and keep the good ones. This aspect is important as it can relate to the performance of the cattle, such as the growth rate, feed conversion efficiency, reproduction and meat quality. We would measure the temperament through the flight speed, flight distance and its behaviour in a cattle crush. The flight time is the time it takes for the animal to travel a set distance when existing the cattle crush. Also, a crush score/yard score is used, where a person would stand by the crush and rate each animal from 1- 5.

1.     Calm, with no movement

2.     Slightly restless

3.     Squirming shaking head bail or crush

4.     Continuous, very rigorous movement, shaking of head bail

5.     Rearing, twisting of the body, struggling violently

Dentition/Ageing
We can tell the age of the animal by counting their number of adult teeth. Cattle are aged by the following: milk teeth, 2, 4, 6, and 8 teeth. Eight teeth is a full mouth. The animal would be restrained in a cattle crush, where there is greater control for handling the mouth.

Feet and leg structure
Assessing the feet and leg structure enables us to understand the longevity of the animal for effective mating and reproductive performance. We would be visually assessing the:
 * Front feet angle or rear feet angle
 * Front feet claws set or rear feet claw set
 * Rear leg side view
 * Rear leg hind view

Assessing Body Condition Score (BCS)
The BCS is similar to the BMI for humans. It indicates the muscle, fat reserves, meat quality and yield.

Body condition scoring is important for nutritional management and genetic selection. The BCS ranges from 1- 5. The BCS is a visual assessment (see picture).

The following descriptions outline the criteria for the various body scores. You will find, that sometimes you can't decide between two scores and can give a score in between.
 * BCS 1 Poor hip and pin bones prominent
 * BCS 2 Backward – light tissue covering over skeleton, backbone clearly distinguishable as short ribs, ribs no longer visually obvious
 * BCS 3 Moderate – no significant fat, fair degree of muscling, backbone nor ribs are prominent
 * BCS 4 Forward – animal evenly and well covered in muscle and fat, skeletal projections are smoothly rounded
 * BCS 5 Fat - animal is fat with lumpy appearances, short ribs/ribs are not visible, skeletal definition is lost, tail head and hips buried on fat

Assessing Muscling
Muscling is the degree of thickness of an animal relative to frame size, after adjustments have been made for subcutaneous fat. Heavily muscled cattle produce higher yielding carcasses than lightly muscled cattle. We would visually assess the muscling in the paddock on the places affected by fat: back, loin and hindquarter. The score ranges from A to E. We would view the animal from behind and from the side.
 * A - very heavy muscling
 * B - heavy muscling
 * C - medium muscling
 * D - moderate muscling
 * E - light muscling
 * From behind, the thickness is assessed through the lower hindquarter (Stifle area). Heavily muscled cattle are thickest through the stifle
 * From the side, the convex shape of the hindquarter indicate muscle
 * Stance provides an indication of muscling, where muscled cattle have a wide stance
 * Lightly muscled cattle will have narrow stance and the gut will be visible from the rear
 * Muscle bulges and ripple as an animal walk
 * The thickness through the back line and shoulder should be viewed when assessing muscle

Fat Scores
The fat can be assessed manually (by touching) or visually. The fat scores is a measurement of the fat on the P8 site (rump) in mm. The scores ranges from 1 to 6.
 * 1) 0 – 2 mm
 * 2) 3 – 6 mm
 * 3) 7 – 12 mm
 * 4) 13 – 22mm
 * 5) 23 – 32 mm
 * 6) > 32 mm

Visual Fat Assessment
As the animal fattens the following would occur:
 * Ribs becomes less visible
 * Tail head would soften, mounds of fat would increase beside the tail
 * Muscle seams of hindquarters would be covered with fat and are less evident when animal walks
 * Brisket, flank, cod and twist will all fill out, the animal would have a square appearance compared with the roundness of leaner, heavily muscled cattle

Manual Fat Assessment
Fat is assessed on places where it can be differentiated from the muscle. This includes the short loin, area over the long ribs and area around the tailhead. The score also ranges from 1 to 6.

'''Do you feel ready to take the quiz on examining cattle? Click Here!'''