Relationships between type scores and live animal measurements in beef cattle

The determination of the type score is a visual evaluation of an animal. In scoring beef cattle, no grader can indicate exactly the criteria he used to determine the type grade, nor the degree to which he used them. For this reason, the method of obtaining such an evaluation would seem to be intangible. This indicates that an objective method of determining type, such as live animal measurements, would be useful. An objective method, if it is possible to determine type score by such a method, would make type grading more uniform and remove some of the human element involved.

This investigation was therefore initiated to evaluate the usefulness of certain live animal measurements as objective criteria in determining type. This study may indicate the degree to which the grader uses the various criteria in the evaluation of type, such as height at withers, depth of chest, height of chest, and length of body.