Body score

[Shoei]

Hi,
I'm trying to monitor my gelderlanders weight as he drops it and puts it on in the blink of an eye it seems. I think he seems a bit on the skinny side at the mo but my friend thinks he is ideal. He has good top line but I can just see his ribs. I always thought you should be able to feel but not see. He is about to be moved into the winter paddock this weekend which has masses of good grass but is currently still on the summer grass and having a scoop of speedibeet and his balancer.

Just after opinions really.

Thanks

 

[Meowy Catkin]

I was talking to my Vet about weight scoring a while back and she advised me to score the horse in three areas (the neck and shoulders is the first area, the barrel the second and the hindquarters the third) then you add the three scores together and then divide by three. My gelding always scores lower on his barrel as you can often see his ribs a bit, but his scores are higher on the other two areas, so his average score is good.

 

[Tnavas]

Hi,
I'm trying to monitor my gelderlanders weight as he drops it and puts it on in the blink of an eye it seems. I think he seems a bit on the skinny side at the mo but my friend thinks he is ideal. He has good top line but I can just see his ribs. I always thought you should be able to feel but not see. He is about to be moved into the winter paddock this weekend which has masses of good grass but is currently still on the summer grass and having a scoop of speedibeet and his balancer.

Just after opinions really.

Thanks

Agree that you should not be able to see the ribs, unless the horse is extremely fit and then you would see the muscle structure in detail. My Clydie puts on weight easily so I do the feel test, if I find the ribs disappearing then it's off to the diet paddock.