AVA Conference Adelaide 2016

Cattle ‘communicate’ their welfare and health through what is referred to as ‘cattle signs’. Cattle signs are parameters that can be observed and measured. The important cattle signs related to nutrition include: behavioural (particularly mentation, hair coat and body language), physiological (particularly appetite, thirst, prehension, erucation, rumination, faecal score, digestibility score, and rumen fill) and management parameters (particularly husbandry). Unfortunately, many signs do not have agreed units of measure or standards. An understanding of conditions and disorders which may cause a sign is crucial for the correct interpretation. For example, cattle (patients) non-ruminating is unusual behaviour and may indicate problems with diet quality. However, the same signs may be observed with abdominal pain, various disorders and stress. The diagnosis of a problem is based on a holistic approach and no individual measure is sufficient. During the assessment of nutrition, the prevalence of a given sign or set of signs need to be established as well at the ‘qualitative’ severity of the sign. This paper will describe how to carry out assessment of the cattle signs and why they are important in assessment of nutrition as part of herd health and productivity management