Body Condition Scoring Your Way to Profit
Welcome to the Angus Journal’s body condition scoring Web site — a leading resource for cattle producers interested in using body condition scores (BCS) to improve their herd nutrition and efficiency.

Body condition scoring serves as a useful, easy-to-use management tool to determine the nutritional needs of a cow herd. Using a numeric scoring system from 1 to 9, cattlemen can evaluate cows in the field to estimate body energy reserves. This information can be used to adjust feeding strategies to reach optimal BCS. Since body condition greatly affects reproductive performance as well as feeding efficiency, monitoring body condition using BCS can greatly influence a producer’s bottom line.

Body condition scores are also important in establishing selection tools provided by the American Angus Association. Along with yearling data and cow weight, which should be taken 45 days before and 45 days after a calf’s weaning measure date, BCS are essential in calculating improved mature cow expected progeny differences (EPDs) in the National Cattle Evaluation (NCE). These EPDs will then be used in the new Weaned Calf Index ($W), which is scheduled for release in the spring 2005 NCE. Cow weights submitted without BCS will not be used to calculate mature size EPDs.

For more BCS information please explore the site, made possible by assistance from Virginia Tech and sponsorship by Purina and AgriLabs. You'll want to take special note of the video clips and photo gallery showing examples of Angus cows in BCS 3 through 9.