Structure & Balance
The top line of an animal's back from shoulders to tail.
What is the topline?
Animals raised primarily for meat production.
What are market animals?
Animals kept to produce offspring.
What are breeding animals?
Comparing animals against each other in class.
What is placing?
The overall physical appearance and balance of an animal.
What is conformation?
What is pin width?
The area of valuable meat along the back of a hog or lamb.
What is the loin?
A young female bovine that has not had a calf.
What is a heifer?
Giving reasons for how you placed a class.
What is oral reasons?
The amount of muscle an animal has.
What is muscling?
The shoulder blade area of livestock.
What is the withers?
The thickness through the rear leg of a market animal.
What is stifle width?
A female sheep kept for producing lambs.
What is a ewe?
The most desirable animal in a class.
What is the class winner?
The amount of fat cover on an animal's body.
What is finish?
The rear joint that acts like a human ankle.
What is the hock?
The term describing the rib shape and body capacity.
What is spring of rib?
A male sheep used for breeding.
What is a ram?
The second-best animal in a class.
The structural correctness of feet and legs.
What is soundness?
When an animal's legs are too close together at the hocks.
What is cow-hocked?
The ideal fat thickness for a finished market animal.
What is optimal finish?
A female in a commercial herd selected primarily for productivity traits like fertility and mothering ability rather than pedigree.
What is a commercial female?
The term used when two animals are very similar in quality.
What is close pair?
The way an animal moves when walking.
What is movement?