Cattle weight and other body measurements within Son La province of Vietnam

Karen Marshall, Sophie Malinga, Elizabeth Poole, Le Tien Dung, Han Anh Tuan, Do Van Duc, Nguyen Van Dai, Huyen Le Thi Thanh. (8/11/2024). Cattle weight and other body measurements within Son La province of Vietnam [Survey Data].

The dataset includes both household-level and animal-level characteristics. At the household level, data collected included geographic information such as the name of the commune, household number, and the number of eligible animals. Background information about the farmer was also captured.

Animal-level data comprised three main types: measured variables, enumerator observations, and farmer-reported information. Measured variables included body length, height, and heart girth (all recorded in centimeters), as well as weight (in kilograms). Enumerator observations covered characteristics such as cattle breed and body condition score. Farmer-reported data included information on pregnancy status, feeding practices, housing type, time since the animal was last fed, and castration status.

To facilitate analysis, several composite and derived variables were created. These included a sex-pregnancy status variable with three categories: Female Pregnant (FP), Female Non-Pregnant (FNP), and Male(M), where the FP were excluded. A weight group variable was also developed, comprising 14 categories based on 25-kg intervals, except for the first (15–24.5 kg) and last (325–375 kg) bands. Additionally, some variables were recoded to reduce complexity in the analysis: cattle breed was collapsed into three categories—Laisind, Yellow, and Other—while body condition score was simplified into two levels: Thin and Moderate/Fat.