Pat Raia shares the tools and techniques needed to assess equine body condition. Assessing a horse’s body condition requires patience and lots of practice. Raia presents the Henneke body condition scale developed in the 1960s. It is designed to evaluate a horse’s overall body condition, though it does not assess equine weight.
Source: EquiShopper, May 6, 2020. Link. Since its development, veterinarians, nutritionists, and horse owners have used Henneke’s system to regulate feed intake and exercise to address equine obesity, a condition that puts horses at risk for myriad physical ailments ranging from laminitis and founder to metabolic conditions including diabetes. The scale also has become indispensable to animal welfare authorities, because it provides an objective way to identify malnourished horses.
INSIGHTS: This is a good service to provide when performing Coggins testing.