title: [Review of nutritional conditions of horses and cattle as a tool in veterinary services animal welfare procedures].
abstract: The control of husbandry by veterinarians with the prospect of animal welfare demands a valuation of the nutritional status of farm animals. The situation of main importance is a suspected undernutrition. A prolonged failure in nutrient and energy supply results in mobilisation of body fat as well as body protein. Especially the protein depletion includes a loss of capacity of several essential functions, e.g. of the immune system or the respiratory tract. Undernutrition is often classified as stress, but the typical parameters for stress related reactions offer no sufficient information to evaluate a case of undernutrition. A useful tool to justify the nutritional status of an animal is the amount of body fat by sonographic measurements. Processes related to reproduction are rather sensible to a reduction of body fat; although they are less expensive by energy point of view compared to exercise or milk production. Measuring body fat offers the opportunity to describe the degree of undernutrition and to appreciate, if a malnourished animal is damaged accordingly the definitions of animal welfare. However, the equipment and the experience to use sonographic methods is often not available for veterinarians, who are responsible in official control of husbandry. But the visual and manual procedures to proof defined areas, mainly related to back fat thickness, well known as the body condition scoring, alternatively can be used. The body condition score systems, as defined for cows, sheep and horses, are proofed by different experiments with regard to accuracy and reproducibility. They completely cover the demand in precision to evaluate body fat and in consequence the nutritional status of an animal.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Tierernährung, Tierärztlichen Hochschule Hannover.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Coenen
mesh_terms: D000822:Animal Husbandry; D000827:Animal Welfare; D000818:Animals; D001823:Body Composition; D002417:Cattle; D006304:Health Status; D006736:Horses; D009752:Nutritional Status; D014730:Veterinary Medicine
vernacular_title: Beurteilung des Ernährungszustandes von Pferden und Rindern im Rahmen amtstierärztlicher Massnahmen.