Is your horse too fat or too thin? Find out with Spillers condition scoring!

When you see your horse everyday, it can be easy to miss subtle changes in his weight and condition.

Condition scoring is a simple tool that will help you notice small changes in your horses weight or condition early.

There are several different methods of condition scoring, most of which involve giving a general score of for the overall look of the horse.

Spillers uses a 1-9 condition scoring scale for different areas of the body, which is then added together and an average calculated.

This method takes into account different types or breeds of horses and the work that they do, for example, a show horse will look very different to a fit eventer, whilst both horses may be fit and healthy.

To condition score accurately, the horses history, age, work level, and breed are all important considerations.

Hands on
Safety is obviously a priority even if you know the horse; condition scoring should be a hands on task, you cant condition score effectively with just your eyes.

Use the following guide to score each area of the horses body

Score/General Condition
1 Very Poor
2 Very Thin
3 Thin
4 Moderately Thin
5 Moderate
6 Moderately Fleshy
7 Fleshy
8 Fat
9 Extremely Fat

How-to condition score with Spillers
Start by standing back and taking an overall look at the horse.

Neck
Start at the neck and feel all the way along the neck. Can you feel fat covering, a thickening of the neck, and does the neck blend smoothly into the body?

Withers
Straight on to the withers: are they accentuated? Or is the area along the withers filled with fat.

Shoulders
Does the shoulder blend smoothly into the body, or is their fat build up behind the shoulder?

Ribs
This is an area everybody knows to look at: are the ribs visible, can you feel them? You should certainly be able to feel them.

Loins
This is the area just behind the saddle and ideally should be level. If there is an inward crease, this is a sign there is more fat deposits than is ideal.

Tail head
The last area to look at is the tail head and this often best viewed from behind the horse remembering again safety first, are the hip bones prominent, or can you feel fat around the tail head?

Once you have scores for each of these areas you can add them together and calculate the average.

Ideally, we should aim for a condition score of five for our horses. If you are concerned about your horses condition, it may be wise to contact a qualified nutritionist to help you plan a diet that better suits your horses needs.

Good condition starts with a great feeding regime, and for horses and ponies that means a diet high in fibre. We commonly think of fibre as grass, hay and haylage that make up the forage portion of our horses diets, but fibre is contained to a greater or lesser extent in many feeding stuffs. Fibre comes in long form as grass, hay and haylage, in chopped forms as with chaffs, and thirdly in ground form as cubes and mixes.

Horses are natural fibre digesters. Over two thirds of the equine digestive capacity is principally devoted to the digestion and absorption of nutrients from fibre, compared to just 20% for processing protein, starch and oil.

The importance of fibre
After water, fibre is the most important nutrient for any horse. Not only do horses have a physical need for fibre to maintain their digestive function and the health of the digestive tract, they also have a psychological need to chew for 60% of the time as a form of activity.

It is therefore advisable that fibre should make up at least 50% of the equine diet.

Spillers has a team of trained nutritionists on hand ready to answer all your questions, offer practical advice and, when necessary, draw up individual diets tailored especially to your specific circumstances.

For more information, contact the Spillers Care-Line on www.spillers-feeds.com.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• horse feeds
• spillers
• feed company

[DeathKitty123456]

I would love to get my horse body scored, it is difficult because his neck is great, all muscle ;), he has a prominant wither and spine, his shoulders are also good and so are his ribs, covered but can feel without any pressure. His big problem is his hips, spine and rump/dock, they are all prominant and no matter what i feed or what work i do they stay that way lol i am not sure whether he is underweight or moderate when it is added up and evened out :\

[51LAY]

What ? I can't hear you for the wind! try filming in the barn!

[1998sophiemae]

Great video very very helpful, but i was wondering..... i have a horse who weight is a bit of a confusion, she has 4 ribs showing but her neck is not ewe there is no dip in her tail she is being fed and has good grass been wormed has no problems with teeth but i dont know why ribs are showing ? can you please reply

[LorraineHatrix]

I would LOVE you to do this again with out the wind noise please.

[kenntracie]

one of my horses are fat and he is like 1,300 lbs.

[miresly2010]

Reason why I love youtube..........;D Thanks so much for this video....please upload some more!

[xTheSuperNaturalx]

very helpful thanks!

[crazyimagination]

Very useful! Thanks for sharing this!