Taking body condition scoring to the next level

Citation

Bissell H. 2025. Taking body condition scoring to the next level. In Treiber K, Brooks M, D’amato-Anderson J, Nylander J, Eds. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Conference on Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition, AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, Oklahoma City, OK.

Abstract

Visual body condition scoring (vBCS) is an important tool for assessing the energetic status of animals and is one of the key metrics used when assessing nutritional welfare. Although the number of vBCS scales available for zoo animals has greatly increased over the last few years, now encompassing examples from most phyla of animals, challenges continue to exist with: (1) assessing vBCS, (2) validating the scales with internal measurements, (3) understanding the health impacts of various vBCS scores, and (4) using vBCS effectively to set goals for our animals.

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