Accuracy of Current Body Weight Estimation Methods in Body Condition Categories and Reproducibility Among Trained Professionals in Equine Nutrition Screening

Accurately estimating body weight in equids is important for overall health, yet accuracy of available tools to estimate body weight in varying body condition score categories (underweight, ideal, overweight, obese) is limited. Our objective was to determine accuracy of weight tape (WT) and morphometric measurement (MM) weight estimations compared to scale weight (SW) in underweight (BCS-U: 1-3), ideal (BCS-I: 4-5), overweight (BCS-O: 6-7), and obese (BCS-Ob: 8-9) body condition score categories. We collected BCS, SW, WT-A and MM from light breed, adult (> 2 years), non-pregnant horses (n= 136) recruited from local barns, local horse shows, and horses admitted to an academic hospital (UTK-IACUC Protocol #2699). Within BCS-U, SW was significantly lower than MM, overestimating by 43.3 kg (95% CI: 23.3, 63.3) (p