weighing a horse

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horselady

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Hey, I was wondering how you would calculate a horses weight. I am presuming that you don't just pop them on the bathroom scales LOL. The cob who is arriving looks very fat. This is my first horse and she is arriving tomorrow. Can you weigh a horse?
 
Our vet has scales for horses at the surgery and doesn't charge to use them if you take your horse there. There might be similar at you vets. Otherwise you can get a weight tape , they aren't particularly accurate but at least you can get an idea of how much is lost/gained.
 
I got my horse weighed at a local yard when I went to a competition, it was a top spec lady. If you keep your eyes open or look on FB you can find out if they are going to be in your area. Other then that a weight type gives you an idea.
 
Top spec come to my yard every few months and do weight watchers for horses! they are coming back in Jan!! hopefully Sam will have lost a kg or 2!! but he doesn't appear to have ;/
 
The best thing to do in this case,OP, is to condition score your new horse. If you are not sure how to do this, you will find instructions on the web. If you then decide that he is overweight, a weight tape will give you a measurement to compare weekly, when you put him on a diet.
 
There should be a weighbridge near you. Borrow transport, load horse, go and weigh. Go home, unload horse, go back to brdige and re-weigh! Difference = horse! Good travelling practice too.
 
use a weight tape, they are not completely accurate but give you an idea and then use it once a month at the same time of day so you can check they are losing. Dengie bring a weighbridge to your yard for free if there is a minimum of 5 horses, they give you feed advice and free samples. My vet also used his weigh tape on my mare and said in comparisson to a weighbridge his were usually about 20-30 kg more than the tape measurement so it is a good indicator at least in the meantime
 
Most equine vets will have suitable scales you can walk your horse onto & that's really the only way to get an accurate weight. Weight tapes are not very accurate, according to our vets they are invariably at least 20-30 kgs out.

Until we took both our horses to the vets for weighing we didn't know or care what their weight was, we went by their condition, how they looked & performed. The scales at the vets just reinforced that we were feeding & exercising correctly. :)
 
Advice from my vet re:fat appaloosa weight loss programme is to use a weigh tape weekly. Even if they aren't that accurate you'll be able to monitor the drop off.

Also - use the same weigh tape for consistency. The Podgy one is 25 kg heavier with Dodson & Horrell than the Bailey's one. She's obviously voting that we use the Bailey's one so she can have double helpings of Xmas pud tomorrow.
 
As said above, tapes are ok for an estimate and to roughly gauge weight changes, but the only truly accurate way is a weigh bridge. There was quite a big difference between the tape and the bridge weights for my old girl (solid built but correct weight Ardennes) but like our vet said, a tape doesn't measure their a*se!
 
A weight tape gives you a good indication of whether they are losing off their girth, regardless of whether they are accurate.

Interestingly, I took friend pony into Leahurst last week and she was weighed on the weigh bridge. On arriving home, friend weight taped her, there was a 20kg difference- weight tape 20kg less than the actual weight.
 
Weight tapes are pretty inaccurate but you can use them to see if your horse is gaining or losing .
I take mine down to the vets or they bring the wieghtbridge here.
I usually do them four times a year .
 
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