Accurate determination of nutritional and health status of animals is invaluable in modern animalagriculture. Body weights and body condition scoring are the commonly used methods of assessingnutritional status of animals. This paper discusses drawbacks these methods have and highlights thebenefits for using blood metabolites in assessing nutritional status of beef cattle. Blood metabolitelevels indicate the extent of metabolism of energy, proteins and other nutrients in animals. Glucose,cholesterol, non-esterified fatty acids, protein, urea, creatinine, albumin, globulin, minerals, liverenzymes and haematology can be used objectively, reliably and routinely to assess the nutritionalstatus of cattle. In Southern Africa, the use of these metabolites is rare due to lack of equipment forblood analysis and the high cost of analyzing the blood parameters. However, use of high value Ngunicattle in Southern Africa requires the use of blood parameters to accurately assess their nutritionalstatus. Several factors, such as physiological status of an animal, breed, nutrition, season and ageaffect levels of blood metabolites. Combining body weights, body condition scores and bloodmetabolites increase accuracy of assessing the nutritional state and welfare of beef cattle
