Influence of calving on body condition score (BCS)

The BCS technique based on visual, tactile or combined assessment of the amount of body condition carried by the cow on 5 point scale was used on 216 crossbred HF cows to study the postpartum changes in BCS. The BCS observed for all the first calvings and all other (2-4) calvings were 3.18 +/- 0.39 and 3.52 +/- 0.54 respectively. The BCS at 60 days, 120 days and loss at 120 days of all lactations were 3.12 +/- 0.79, 3.06 +/- 0.68 and 0.87 +/- 0.62, respectively, were observed. The body condition loss ranged from 0:50 to 1.09 over the BCS range of 2.5 to 4.5 with an average of 0.27 points increase for every 1 unit increase of BCS. The magnitude of condition loss depended primarily on score at calving and was greater for cows that calved with high BCS. After reaching the minimum score, cows gained the range of BCS from 0.18 to 0.27 and with an average gain of 0.04 points for every increase of I unit of BCS. The total amount of gain was mainly influenced by BCS at calving and by milk yield. The loss in BCS was no way in comparison with gain in BCS. A quadratic relationship existed between the lactation number and BCS at calving with FCM production to 90 days in milk (DIM). The change in BCS from calving to 60 days vs 90 days FCM production was quadratically (P < 0.0001) related to lactation number which showed that lactation number accounted for most of variation in milk production. The BCS varied quadratically with days in milk (DIM) and month in milk (MIM) with in each lactation. Mean BCS for 30 days lactation was significantly different at 241-270 days and at 60-120 days. All other 30 days of milk intervals and dry periods were not significantly different from respective adjacent 30 days lactation intervals. There was a significant difference in BCS between early dry cows (EDS) acid late dry cows (LDS).