How To Calculate the Weight of a Miniature Horse

[Jill]

The Equine Nutritionalist at my local Farmer's Co-operative sent me the information below, and I wanted to share it with my friends here. I think it will be valuable. Even my vets, who are wonderful, always ask me "how much do you think he/she weighs?"

Some weekend soon, I think Harvey and I will do a little project and calculate the weights of all our miniatures and make a chart so we will know how to answer the question of "how much does this mini weigh?"

In the past, some of us have discussed the "fact" that the weight tape is not very accurate when it comes to minis so it stands to reason that the formula for "weighing" big horses would not translate well to miniatures.

Hopefully the below will be of use to lots of us!

PS The article is in JPG format, so you may want to save it to your computer for future reference

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[Marty]

Jill thanks for that good information.

I have found that the measuring tapes for the minis are a bit off.

I was surprised to find out just how far off when I weighed some of mine at the vet hospital

during our last visit there.

The way I weighed my big horses was to ride them down the end of our road back home in Florida to the local dump. I would take their saddles off and weigh them on the scales there. A lot of people wanted to know how I knew that Sonny, my wayward bad boy weighed in at exactly 1253 pounds and I told them he stood on the scales at the dump, but I decided to bring him back home anyhow!

When I rode him back to the barn, it was amazing that the weigh tape was only off by 3 pounds.

 

[Jill]

Yeah, I have always known the weight tapes can be pretty off in minis (but still a tool to monitor body condition). I've had this article for a year or so and FINALLY got around to scanning it! I actually misplaced my first copy, and had to request another.

 

[FoRebel]

Thanks for the information Jill. I am going to calculate weights before I give wormer next time. I think I have probably been underestimating most if not all of our minis. I copied the article so I can have it too.

 

[evedex]

Thank you for posting this article. At our club's spring clinic last year, we weighed being assembled Miniature horses by their regular weight tape, and inches tape with the formula, and on an actual scale. It was very interesting to see the differences. The fact that no one method was an e not xact percentage either over or under the scale was quite an eye opener.

The results of the clinic are posted on the MHCO website under "clinic notes". The website can be found at www.MHCO.ca

 

[angel_cowgirl]

Stupid questions I guess... but what does the "R squared = ..." stand for? What ends up being R, how do you plug it in?..

And in the first equation, I assume length is the length of the body? From head to tail, or...?

Are all 3 equations suppose to have the same result on the same horse? Is that why there's 3?

Sorry I'm sure theres just something I'm not getting at the late hour..

Its very interesting and I wanted to try it so I just wanted to for sure know how to do it..

 

[tracerace]

Stupid questions I guess... but what does the "R squared = ..." stand for? What ends up being R, how do you plug it in?..

And in the first equation, I assume length is the length of the body? From head to tail, or...?

Are all 3 equations suppose to have the same result on the same horse? Is that why there's 3?

Sorry I'm sure theres just something I'm not getting at the late hour..

Its very interesting and I wanted to try it so I just wanted to for sure know how to do it..

I have the very same questions. Anyone?

 

[Sheryl]

Okay, it has been DECADES since I have studied math, so forgive me if I get this all messed up. I think that the "R Squared" just stands for how positive the correlation to the line the formula is. I can't think of the right terminology... but essentially, the closer you get to 1.00, the stronger the correlation. That means, that the formulas all have a good correlation, but the first has the highest, the second is next best, the third is well third.

I KNOW I am not being clear... but basically, they took some measurements and came up with some formulas. They then plotted the actual results of the weights and compared the accuracy of the formulas to the actual results (the correlation).

If you want to actually calculate your minis weight, plug the numbers in such as"

body weight = (9.36 X girth in inches) + (5.01 X length in inches) - 348.53

That formula has a .94 correlation to the actual weights graphed based on their study, hence Rsquared=.94

 

[angel_cowgirl]

Thanks Sheryl that helps some.

However, I still am unsure of how to find their length, is it from muzzle to tail, or what?

Thanks!

 

[chandab]

Thanks Sheryl that helps some.

However, I still am unsure of how to find their length, is it from muzzle to tail, or what?

Thanks!

The formula I have shows the length being measured from the point of the shoulder to the point of the buttock (big muscle to the side of the tail). [it's not quite the same measurement as for blankets, which is from center of chest around the side to center of tail.] Hope this helps some.