Maintaining Optimum Body Condition

Regularly monitoring your ex-racehorse's weight and condition is crucial to managing weight and maintaining a healthy body condition.

There are several ways to assess your horse’s weight including using a weighbridge, body condition scoring and using a weigh tape.

Being overweight or underweight can have negative effects to the horse’s overall health, for example if they are too fat, the risk of metabolic disease and laminitis is increased, as well as putting excessive strain on cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. If they are too thin, they will have limited energy reserves, will prematurely fatigue and take longer to recover.

BODY CONDITION SCORING

Body Condition Scoring (BCS) is a method of assessing your horse's body fat coverage and should form part of your routine management plan. With practice, condition scoring is an accurate way of ensuring that your ex-racehorse does not gain or lose too much body condition and shows results far more quickly than by the eye alone. This enables you to make any dietary adjustments before a problem has occurred. We recommend that condition scoring is carried out on a fortnightly basis in conjunction with weight taping.

SARACEN EV BURSARY 2015 SPENCER WILTON 375 — STEP ONE - Feel along the top of your horse's neck and down to where the withers join the shoulders

SARACEN EV BURSARY 2015 SPENCER WILTON 407 — STEP TWO - Run your hands down both sides of the withers and continue along the back, feeling for the spinous processes or fat on either side of the backbone

SARACEN EV BURSARY 2015 SPENCER WILTON 409 — STEP THREE - Feel the quarters and trailhead for projecting bones or fat deposits

SARACEN EV BURSARY 2015 SPENCER WILTON 389 — STEP FOUR - Run your hand down the neck and over the shoulder feeling for any fatty deposits, particularly behind the shoulder blade

SARACEN EV BURSARY 2015 SPENCER WILTON 397 — STEP FIVE- Press firmly around the ribcage to assess the fat coverage over the ribs

HH SARACEN BURSARY2016 NUT CONS 2422 — We would recommended weight taping in conjunction.

We are often asked ‘what is the optimum body condition score for my horse to be in?’ This can depend upon several factors, such as the type of work and health status of the individual horse. So as a general rule of thumb, the aim is to have a horse in the region of a BCS of 5 or 5.5. If you are unsure about how to BCS and what is the ideal body condition score for your horse or pony, please contact us for advice.

NEED MORE GUIDANCE?

For a detailed, personalised feeding plan for your horse to ensure optimum fibre intakes, please complete our simple and free Feed Advice form and we will compile a detailed ration using our tailor made formulation software. Alternatively, if you would prefer to speak to one of our qualified nutritionists for some immediate advice, please call our feed advice line on 01622 718 487.

Feed Advice Form

Complete our online form to receive a detailed nutritional plan for your horse or pony from one of our registered nutritionists.

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