| Popis: |
Ninety-eight Hereford × Angus beef cows were used to determine reproducibility (the correlation between an animal’s score by one technician and its score by a different technician), repeatability (the correlation between an animal’s score on one occasion and its score by the same technician on another occasion), and degree of expertise required to assess body condition. Body condition score (BCS) was determined by using a nine-point scale in which 1 represents an emaciated cow and 9 an obese cow. Three groups of technicians with different degrees of expertise scored the cows. Each technician scored the cows at a second time, later in the same day Group 1 (Gl) consisted of four technicians with at least 2 yr of experience in using the BCS system. Group 2 (G2) was five technicians that were familiar with cattle but they had no previous experience scoring cows and were trained the day before the experiment as to how to score the animals by a member of Gl. Group 3 (G3) consisted of four technicians with no experience with cattle and they were simply instructed to give the cows a score between 2 and 8. Reproducibility was 0.65 a , 0.42 b , and 0.50 ab , for Gl, G2, and G3, respectively (P a , 0.68 b , and 0.59 b , for Gl, G2, and G3, respectively; P |
