Brief communication: Can weighing multiple times increase the accuracy of live weight recording?

Abstract

The recording of live weight in livestock enterprises is fundamental for breeding and production, the ease of which has been greatly improved with the advent of automated weighing and recording platforms. However, the extent to which significant advances within a livestock enterprise can be made with the utilization of live weight data depends on the validity of the indicated weights which can be influenced by measurement error from a number of sources (Hughes 1976). Thus, the use of scales only provides an estimate of an animal’s true live weight. Despite the importance of live weight, there is a distinct paucity of published data surrounding the variation in live weight estimates and weighing protocols that may be used to reduce this variation. The objectives of this study were to redress this lack of fundamental data by quantifying the variability of a live weight estimate and examining if this can be reduced through both fasting and repeated weight recordings.