The Development of a Human Behaviour Change (HBC) Intervention to Increase the Adoption of Body Condition Scoring Cattle by Hand: What are the Barriers & Drivers of Change?

The recommended approach for monitoring fat deposits in cattle is body condition scoring (BCS), which requires the use of the hand to provide a subjective judgement of subcutaneous fat depth at key points on the cow’s body (Turner at al., 2021). Despite the apparent ease and benefits of BCS by hand, only 4% of UK beef farmers use this approach. Treating BCS by hand as our “target behaviour” our study examined the barriers and drivers of this behaviour, mapping each determinant onto the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). The BCW – a theoretical model – was developed from a synthesis of 19 frameworks of behaviour change (Michie et al., 2014). The BCW thus provides researchers with an evidence-based guide for designing and evaluating behaviour change interventions. We argue that to successfully change behaviour(s), researchers must closely follow each of the steps advised by the BCW, from initial behavioural diagnosis to final intervention design.