Assessment of a cow's body condition score (BCS) gives a visual estimate of her body fat reserves, which in turn provides useful information on her future productivity, future feed requirements and previous level of feeding.

• A BCS scale of 1 to 10 is used in NZ
• A cow with a BCS of less than 3.0 is considered emaciated
• A cow with a BCS greater than 7.0 is considered obese.