Q&A for How to Judge Conformation in Cattle

The hips or pelvic structure of a cow needs to be deep and wide. The pin bones of the hips need to be wide with lots of length between hooks and pins, and wide hook bones as well. This creates plenty of room for calving. The pelvis should be tipped downward at the rear rather than tipped up. Tipped up usually is conducive to calving problems.

No. They are two different things. Body condition is level of fat on the animal, and conformation is skeletal structure.

Well-sprung ribs indicate good capacity for heart and lungs and other eternal organs, like some of the rumen and reticulum as well.

Squarely under her, with feet under the shoulders and hips. It's really hard to tell if a cow's standing properly if you are looking at her while she's standing on uneven ground, so be aware of that.

The heritability is quite low, around 15 to 20% for most breeds.

The standard treatment for cows with a corpus luteum (CL) is an injection of prostaglandin (PG) which will bring most cows into heat two to four days after injection. Combining the PG with heat detection focused on the treated cow will result in cows getting pregnant more quickly.