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in Animal Husbandry· Cattle

Is My Cow Too Skinny? Evaluating Cattle Body Condition

So you’ve been dreaming of a family milk cow. Raw milk. Cream. Butter. Cheese. Clanging milk pails. Cool morning sunrises. The sweet smell of hay. The works. So you bought a piece of land. And it’s big enough to finally bring your gal home and start living the dream. Congratulations!

But what if your small pasture is lousy? They use to run horses on it. It’s full of weeds. The budget’s tight and you can’t afford to reseed. It’s not raining much this year so the grass isn’t growing. So, you need to improve your pasture.

A cow eating grass

Does this description fit anyone besides me?

We’ve been dealing with raising a family milk cow on poor-quality pasture for many years now and while we’re finally implementing practices that have shown great improvement over the past year, we’re nowhere near where we’d like to be and it’s our job in the meanwhile to keep a close eye on our gals (for that family milk cow has turned into several) to make sure that their bodies are telling us they are fit and healthy. Also, do you wonder why we need to feed them with grains?

The best way to do that is to evaluate their “body condition.”

Assessing body condition in dairy cattle is NOT the same as doing so in beef cattle. The frame and build of each type of cow is different and should not be compared to evaluate health. That’s like comparing a Greyhound to a Basset Hound because they’re both dogs. You’ll either end up with fat unhealthy Greyhounds or a poor Basset that is starving half to death.

It’s hard not to compare. Trust me, I know. Sometimes it’s us doing the comparing, sometimes it’s well-meaning family, friends, or readers. Dairy cows always look so bony, but that’s ok. Even when they are fat and over-conditioned, they will still show some bones. Put your hands on those bones and you’ll realize they’re padded with fat!

Another thing to note as you observe and record the health of your milk cow by evaluating her body condition is that it will vary depending on where she is in her lactation. She should be looking her most fat and sassy just prior to giving birth. After she freshens and heads into peak lactation, her condition will begin to dip. By mid-lactation, if all goes well, she should be bred and will begin to start packing on the LB’s. And then you’ll dry her off a couple of months before calving and she’ll be right back at fat and sassy again. So it fluctuates. What you don’t want to see is the body condition at any point dropping below 2.5. Frankly, I’ve noticed I start to feel worried around a 3, but then I remember I’m not looking at Maybelle anymore. (She was our old Dexter, a dual-purpose breed that doesn’t have the same bony frame of a Jersey.)

After reviewing several charts and diagrams on the internet, I feel like this one is the most helpful for a beginner. With it, let’s evaluate the gals we’re currently blessed to be milking morning and evening, shall we?

Cattle body condition chart

Evaluating Cattle Body Condition

{Holly}

Holly Rear View
Holly Side View


Average: 2.375

First up is Holly. She’s our main family milk cow. A 6-year-old cull cow from an organic dairy farm. We got a sweet deal on her and were in desperate need of a lactating cow to nurse the calf born last year when the little heifer’s mama, Maybelle, died the day after she was born.

Holly freshened the last week of March, about 6 months ago. Sadly, she is NOT bred though the AI tech has been out to visit a couple of times over the last few months.

While she looks much better than she did last year, she doesn’t look as good as she did a couple of months ago and her condition might be continuing to slip. As we leave green grass season, will it get worse? Could this be why she isn’t getting bred back? The 2nd photo I think isn’t quite showing her boniness really well. It was taken at dusk and shadowing that side.  Here’s a different angle… Again, not horrible, but not great either.

Cow's back and hips

{Stella}

Stella's Rear view
Stella's Side View


Average: 3.6

Stella is one pretty gal. (And she’s a sweetheart too.) She had her first calf this year, not sure exactly when, but it’s probably 6+ months ago. She’s probably about 2 1/2 years old.  It took 2 tries, but her second AI took and she’s going to calve in early June.

{Candy}

Candy's Rear View
Candy's Side View


Average: 3.8

I think it’s a little harder to see how Candy is doing because of her stunningly beautiful coat. Candy is about the same age as Stella and had a calf around the same time, but her calf died. She’s smaller framed than the rest of our cows.  She is NOT bred, but that’s our fault. After a very demonstrative first heat cycle after coming to our farm, we didn’t observe any other symptoms of her going into heat after that. The blood tests don’t lie and so it turns out we were wrong and were missing the signs the last few months. We caught them this week (barely) and she had another visit from the AI tech earlier this week. Anyway, all things considered, we’re happy with the way Candy looks.

 {Big Bertha}

Big Bertha on the rear perspective
Big Bertha on the side view


Average: 4.5

You haven’t met “Big Bertha” before. In fact, that’s not even her real name. We’re cow-sitting for a friend for a while and she has given me permission to discuss “Big Bertha’s” body condition for this post. By her assumed nickname, you may have gathered that “Big Bertha” is a big girl. She makes Holly look so short and Candy looks like a yearling!

“Big Bertha” is about 3 years old and calved for the first time this month as opposed to the rest of our gals who are in the middle of their lactation. “Big Bertha”, like all new moms, is… well there’s no way to say this delicately… carrying some extra weight.

As we go into the winter, she’ll lose some of it because of the change in diet that comes when the green grass dies and because she’s giving of herself to the milk bucket. Hopefully, she will, like all good milk cows except mine do, get pregnant and at that time she should start packing on the pounds again.

Anyway, you can see even without a chart, that “Big Bertha” has a solid covering of flesh over her hook bones and short ribs. Because of what point she is in her lactation, we don’t want Holly to be this fatty. After all, she isn’t a beef cow and shouldn’t look like one.

Cattle body condition is an important matter to address. Through this, we can be aware of what is happening on our cow’s end, and also it helps us analyze the profit that we can earn.

All things considered, it looks like Holly is needing some TLC. We’re quite happy with the way Stella and Candy look and hope to keep it that way.  Holly’s condition will need to be improved until she looks more like her pasture mates. I’ll address the issue of our game plan in my next post.

Suggested Read: Easy Trick to Tell if Your Cow is Getting Enough To Eat

Learning How To Evaluate Cattle Body Condition

Filed Under: Animal Husbandry, Cattle

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Comments

  1. Jason says

    12 October, 2014 at

    Interesting article found your site while clicking through from thefarmerslamp.com
    I just started a blog at homesteadinfo.wordpress.com trying to share the best knowledge from generations that have come before us. I would like to share this article. By the way your site looks great.

    Reply
    • Quinn says

      13 October, 2014 at

      Thans for sharing Jason! I hope folks find this information useful.

      Reply
  2. Renata says

    16 October, 2014 at

    Cow condition is all very interesting. I know I’ve worried about Bessy at times. She’s in gorgeous condition at the moment, but then this is the time when we have optimal feed in the paddocks & we’ve been working diligently over the years to try & have good pastures. I do, however, need to get her bred. I was going to try AI, but haven’t got around to it. One reason is because we live so far away from the only vet around who does it it’s going to cost over $200 in travel alone each time she comes out. I can justify it if we get Bessy & Chocco done at the same time, but I hate to think of spending the money & then it not working. If I continue to procrastinate we need to dry her off for Christmas so I’ll send her to the bull then ( although I would love to get a pure jersey out of her & train it up as a future milk cow).
    It is interesting how very different dairy cattle’s condition is to beef cattle. We actually sent Chocco (half beef/ half jersey) to the local school fete because we were worried that the people in town who don’t know about cattle condition would think Bess was too skinny ~ even though she was fine. Chocco has that extra padding her cross breeding gives ( while still being a good milker! YAY!).
    I’d better go. I need to tell you that Ellie thinks your Candy is the prettiest cow she’s ever seen!!
    Have a lovely day
    Renata:)

    Reply
    • Quinn says

      17 October, 2014 at

      Well after our experience with AI this year, I don’t blame you one bit Renata for being apprehensive about paying so much to get a tech out there! That’s crazy?! What does she fuel her car with, melted gold? If you do decide to go for it, look into using a hormone that would sync their cycles (it’s called lutalyse here). You’d have to dump the milk for several days, but at least then you’d know for sure they were in heat and at the same time. Praying that you find an easier solution to the problem than even that though!

      I agree with Ellie wholeheartedly! I’m a sucker for that hide. Plus she’s such a sweet girl. We actually were assessing the herd this morning and as we contemplated Candy’s future here, I told Bill I’d sell him first 😉

      Reply
  3. Em says

    8 February, 2019 at

    Hello Quin!
    We own a small hobby farm, and we had a couple questions about our Dexter milk cow.
    Jade, is an 8 year old cow and is new to us. She looks pretty similar to your cow Holly. She seems to stay really skinny even when she is pregnant, and she is pretty slow and does not have very much energy. She has a constant flow of food, and we give her grain occasionally.
    We were just wondering if we should be concerned for her, and if so, how we should get her healthy and up to speed.
    Thank you so much for your information, we found it extremely helpful!!

    Reply

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