<p> Study objectives were to determine the effectiveness, reproducibility, and repeatability of dental evaluation for estimating cattle age. Cattle (n = 400) aged 1.5 to 20 yr were evaluated by 3 technicians for estimated age via dentition. A subset (n = 383) was aged again 4 wk later by the same observers. Age estimations were most accurate in YOUNG (≤ 5 yr old) cattle with at least 95.7% rate of accuracy within 2 yr across all observers and observation events. For MIDDLE (6 to 10 yr old) and OLD (> 10 yr old) cattle, these accuracies were 81.5 and 62.1%, respectively. Reproducibility proved high, with all observers consistently assigning age estimates within 1 yr of one another for more than 9 out of 10 YOUNG animals; all observers agreed on at least every 8 out of 10 estimations for all age groups within 3 yr. Repeatability was less consistent.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1570106 |
| Date | 30 December 2014 |
| Creators | Best, Timothy F. |
| Publisher | Mississippi State University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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