| Calculating Horse Weight Following
is from an article in The Chronicle of the Horse, August 21, 1992. It concerns
getting an accurate weight on your horse to give dewormers and medications more safely.
A U. of Florida study found 88 percent of visual guesses on horse's
weight resulted in underestimates. The best way is to use a truck scale, weigh the trailer
and horse, then the trailer unloaded. Weight tapes give only rough estimates. For those
who can't use the truck scale method, researchers developed the following formula, using
heart girth and body length. Measure the heart girth just behind the elbow, taking the
reading right after the horse exhales. Measure body length from the point of the shoulder
to the point of the buttocks in a straight line. Avoid using a cloth measuring tape
because it may stretch. A metal carpenter's tape is accurate (but noisy - can spook the
horse!). A plastic coated tape works best. If one is not available, use cord or string
that has no stretch and mark the spot with a pen; then measure the cord with a carpenter's
tape or yardstick. Take the two measurements and multiply the heart girth in inches by
itself, then multiply that by the body length in inches. Divide the total by 330 for the
approximate weight in pounds. For example, if the horse measures 75 inches around the
heart girth and body length is 64 inches:
heart girth x heart girth x body length
________________
= body weight
330
75 x 75 x 64
------------------ = 1,090.9 lbs
330
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