With a weight tape you measure girth around elbow and it estimates the body weight from that. It’s important that the horse be standing on level ground. As the horse breathes in and out, slip the tape under the arm behind the elbow and take measurement. The advantage of using this instead of guestimating with your eye is that you avoid drifting into feeding error or under-strength medication doses.
Too little food cause the horse to lose condition. Too much food causes them to get overweight, putting undue stress on their metabolism and joints. Because body weight and girth has a predictable relationship in most adult horses, this is a good tool. It’s quick. No scale is needed.
How to Use a Horse Weight Tape
You can do it again and again over time to see changes slowly occurring. It is a great way to watch for recovery from illnesses. You can adjust rations through winter months. You should of monitor any metabolic problems. All these things you want to track even if you don’t have a scale.
Not all bodies are created equal Horses come in many shapes and sizes, so it also matter what breed they are. For example, a 16-hand Thoroughbred will be more narrow (lean) and a 16-hand Warmblood will be more barrelled (stocky). Even a draft cross will be larger. Knowing the average weight for each breed (you can check an infographic for this) will give you an idea if your reading is high or low for that horse.
If the horse is outside of the norm for his size and body then you may want to adjust slightly. If he’s significantly off from normal body type, don’t take each reading as truth. The measurement can be less accurate based off age. Weanlings and foals tend to have narrower bodies relative to their eventual mature frame. So you might underestimate their weight using standard formula.
Check out this growth chart for an idea about what proportion changes occur at different ages. Adjust for the fact that your horse is still growing until it reaches skeletal maturity. Skeletal maturity is somewhere between 4 and 5 years of age. Once then standard tape will become more reliable.
The weight tape is used with body condition scoring. Pounds don’t indicate where they come from: fat, muscle, or gut fill. Fat cover is rated on a scale of one to nine in the Henneke system. Combined with the tape reading, you have both amount and quality of condition. You can’t manage a horse with buried ribs the same way you manage a horse with visible ribs and the right weight. Both instruments prevents the assumption that a pound is a healthy thing.
If something affects girth, then control it for more accuracy. We measure in the AM before feeding. Don’t measure after a big meal as that will add an inch or more. Stick with one brand of tape; each has their own formula. Make three quick measurements and average. It is better than a single wrap and trust.
Record whether your horse is wearing a thick winter coat. Those good habits lead to cleaner data so you can see where the trends are. After determining your good weight, the math is simple. One and a half to two and a half percent body weight in dry matter daily is how much forage he should eat. The higher number apply to hard working and cold weather horses.
Make sure concentrate meals make up less than half a percent of the total at any single meal. This lessens the chance of colic. Wormers are dosed directly from the tape read out. Correct dosing prevents parasite resistance. Using anti-inflammatory meds safely also relies on knowing the correct weight.
There are limits to the tape. In late-gestational pregnant mares, expanded barrels no longer match their actualy lean mass. Senior horses can lose topline muscle while their bellies stays the same size. Metabolic conditions result in lopsided fat deposits. In such scenarios, the tape remains a helpful starting point.
Interpret odd situations using the context offered by the infographics. Measure it just like you check your water buckets or feel around for hot spots after a ride. It’s become part of your regular care routine. Its consistency makes it practical.