Horse Weight Tape: How to Estimate a Horse's Weight

Ontario's agriculture ministry on weighing a horse: how to use a weight tape, its girth-to-weight table and formula, and when only a scale will do.

Short answer: Ontario's agriculture ministry says "Using a weigh scale is the most accurate way to determine a horse's weight." Without a scale, wrap a weight tape around the girth: "Wrap the tape around the girth of the horse, directly behind the elbow, overlapping the ends of the tape and read the resultant weight." and "Take the reading with the tape snugly in place, when the horse has exhaled." The tape we list for horses is the Coburn horse and pony height weight tape lbs.

Why weigh a horse at all

The Ontario page opens with "A horse's weight can be an important health indicator." Tracking whether a horse is gaining or losing over time is the point, so weigh the same way each time. Ontario's rule for a scale: "Always weigh the horse under the same conditions - for example, 2 hours after it's been fed and watered - to reduce misleading fluctuations in the readings."

How to use a weight tape

Stand the horse square on level ground.
Wrap the tape around the girth, directly behind the elbow, and overlap the ends.
Snug the tape and read it when the horse has breathed out.
Write the reading down with the date, so the next reading is comparable.

Steps 2 and 3 are Ontario's directions; steps 1 and 4 are our own record-keeping suggestions. Ontario's limits on tapes: "Tape accuracy is dependent on the user, size of the withers, breed and age." and "Tapes are not effective on miniature horses and foals."

No tape? Ontario's girth table

Ontario's Table 1 (taken from Lon Lewis's Feeding and Care of the Horse) converts a girth measurement into an estimated weight. A few of its rows:

55.0 in girth (140 cm): 500 lb (227 kg)
64.5 in (164 cm): 800 lb (364 kg)
70.5 in (178 cm): 1,000 lb (455 kg)
75.5 in (192 cm): 1,200 lb (545 kg)

Girth and body length: Ontario's formula

Ontario says girth and body length together "may produce a slightly more accurate measurement than using a weight tape". For adult horses its formula, in metric, is: weight (kg) = girth (cm) × girth (cm) × body length (cm) ÷ 11,900. As an example of the arithmetic only: a 180 cm girth and a 160 cm body length give 180 × 180 × 160 ÷ 11,900 ≈ 436 kg (about 960 lb). That is arithmetic on Ontario's formula, not a measurement of any horse. The page gives a separate formula for foals 0 to 60 days old.

Weight tapes we list

The horse and pony tape is the one made for horses; the others are made for the animals in their names.

Scales, load bars and weigh slings we list

Ontario names a weigh scale as the most accurate method. For a permanent livestock scale we list Tru-Test platforms, load bars, indicators and parts, and Cattle Boss weigh slings:

We also list Kerbl hanging dial scales: the Kerbl Suspended dial balance 25 kg, 50 kg and 100 kg. Their capacities are in their names; they are for feed, sacks and other small loads, not for weighing a horse.

Ask your veterinarian before you use any weight estimate to work out a feed change or a product amount, and follow each product label.

Source: Government of Ontario, "Estimating body weight for horses" (ISSN 1198-712X, published November 2010), ontario.ca, viewed October 2026.

How to Estimate a Horse's Weight: Weight Tape, Girth Table or Scale