Keeping you informed: Body Condition Scoring
What is Body Condition Scoring?
Body Condition Scoring (BCS) is a way to objectively assess your horse’s overall condition and fat covering. This allows us to account for the whole body, compared to the use of a weight-tape which only measures round the girth and scales which do not factor in muscle vs. fat. Areas we look at involve the neck, body and hindquarters. It is important to feel as well as look to find the difference between muscle and fat. We can give each area a score and then work out an average. What is healthy for each horse will vary – just like in people! There are two scales that are used 0-5 and 0-9. For simplicity here we will use the 0-5 scale. A healthy BCS is generally considered to be between 2.5-3.
Why do we Body Condition Score?
Body Condition Scoring allows us to monitor for dangerously increasing or decreasing weight. It is also recommended to use a weight tape alongside to pick up on subtle changes that your scoring may not catch. While weight tapes are often not 100% accurate, they are good for monitoring if your horses weight is increasing, staying the same, or decreasing. It is important to monitor condition as it warns us about underlying problems. For example, a horse with dental issues may lose weight, or a horse who is getting excess forage may gain weight. Being overweight is more commonly a problem than being underweight, partially due to current management practices. Horses are designed to gain weight over summer so that they have the reserves needed for winter when it is wet and cold and there is less food available. Nowadays we provide extra feed through winter and rug our horses to keep them warm so they don’t need to use their reserves and so don’t go through these natural cycles. Why should we worry about this? Equine obesity is becoming increasingly common in the UK, in some native pony breeds up to 70% of individuals are obese. Obesity is linked to various health conditions including laminitis (see Laminitis Information Sheet), arthritis, generalised inflammation, Equine Metabolic Syndrome and more. Donkeys have their own fat stores and so need a different BCS system. This can be found on the Donkey Sanctuary website.
