I cannot find my Weight Tape anywhere - is there another way to guage weight gain/loss?

Fifty Bales of Hay

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I cannot find my weight tape anywhere, and I know I had two, so they must both either have been "borrowed" and not returned or I have put them in an extremely safe place!

Is there any other way I can guage weight gain or loss, or estimate fairly accurately for worming purposes a horses weight please does anyone know?

Nothing too technical as I will get lost lol. I only just about manage when I have a proper tape to do it.
 

Fifty Bales of Hay

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Thank you all - Criso that sounds like a great idea.

I really need to know his weight as well for worming, and he's unridden so no girth to tighten to see how we are doing unfortunately.

Wish I had a clue where these tapes were, I'm going to have another big search today!
 

be positive

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I have never weigh taped for worming, they are rarely accurate , wormers are safe to overdose , under will potentially increase resistance, I give horses a full one, usually up to 600kg mine are on the smaller side so this is plenty, the ponies have 1/2-3/4 and I go over the guesstimate of weight not under, they are a useful tool to check on weight gain or loss if used regularly but are not always accurate with the actual weight.
 

hopscotch bandit

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I cannot find my weight tape anywhere, and I know I had two, so they must both either have been "borrowed" and not returned or I have put them in an extremely safe place!

Is there any other way I can guage weight gain or loss, or estimate fairly accurately for worming purposes a horses weight please does anyone know?

Nothing too technical as I will get lost lol. I only just about manage when I have a proper tape to do it.
None of my suggestions are instantly going to help you but:

Go on the net and look up your local weigh bridge. You can then work out an accurate weight for your trailer/lorry unladen and laden with your horse.

Do your vets a weighbridge/weigh scales which you can use? My vet will let me turn up at anytime during opening hours Mon-Sat and use their weighbridge.

Also reps from feed companies will be glad to come to your yard if there is enough of you and weigh your horses individually and assess their feed needs. They have a portable weigh bridge thing. Just be warned that in my experience whoever you have come out, they will without doubt advise you your horse should have their most expensive balancer lol. Failing that if you are recommended one of their mixes you will be feeding about three scoops per day as per their recommendation :)
 
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criso

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I calibrated my weight tape against the vet's scales so I know that for my horses it is consistently about 30kg under. But day to day I am monitoring loss and gain and I know for my horses what our target waistline is. The link I posted comes out under for both my horses, about the same as my weight tape.

I have a spreadsheet (locked so I can't see the formula) that allows you to enter height, girth and length and is surprisingly accurate. I have tested it on 4 horses and was only 5 kg out compared to vets.

I wouldn't personally recommend the scales that the feed companies bring out. I weighed my horse at a camp on one of those. At the time he was underweight and I was trying to get weight on so also weight taping weekly to check progress. I was surprised at how heavy he was. He had to go to the vets 2 weeks later. I had been feeding and taping and he had put on a reasonable amount of weight in that time so was waiting to see how much. However he came out significantly lower - over 20kg. I trust the vet's scales more. I wondered whether there is room for set up error with something that is transported and packed and unpacked and maybe the car park it was set up in was not level enough. Maybe a very rare event but it has raised a doubt in my mind about portable weighbridges.
 

Fransurrey

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Definitely only useful for checking weight gain/loss
My gelding was almost 100kg heavier on weighbridge than weigh tape 😯
Agree. Book a mobile weigh clinic. Very simple to do and cheap. It was £10 per horse on my yard and my mare was actually 50 kilos LIGHTER than the weigh tape suggested (she's 12.2 hh, so this was about 20 % of her weight). My gelding was also way out, too. I arranged it for worming purposes and so glad I did.
 

Fifty Bales of Hay

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Thank you everyone, I'll organise at some point to get him on some proper scales, either mobile or at the vets. Thats the only accurate way, but working him out on the basis that criso showed me, he's about what I was expecting, so I believe that's probably fairly good, and he's a little underweight, which works in with my conditioning score eye too.
 

hopscotch bandit

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I calibrated my weight tape against the vet's scales so I know that for my horses it is consistently about 30kg under. But day to day I am monitoring loss and gain and I know for my horses what our target waistline is. The link I posted comes out under for both my horses, about the same as my weight tape.

I have a spreadsheet (locked so I can't see the formula) that allows you to enter height, girth and length and is surprisingly accurate. I have tested it on 4 horses and was only 5 kg out compared to vets.

I wouldn't personally recommend the scales that the feed companies bring out. I weighed my horse at a camp on one of those. At the time he was underweight and I was trying to get weight on so also weight taping weekly to check progress. I was surprised at how heavy he was. He had to go to the vets 2 weeks later. I had been feeding and taping and he had put on a reasonable amount of weight in that time so was waiting to see how much. However he came out significantly lower - over 20kg. I trust the vet's scales more. I wondered whether there is room for set up error with something that is transported and packed and unpacked and maybe the car park it was set up in was not level enough. Maybe a very rare event but it has raised a doubt in my mind about portable weighbridges.
Yes I agree with you re: vets scales compared to feed companies scales, at my vets my horse weighed considerably heavier, yet it was only a couple of days later. I'd forgotten about that!
 
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