Body Condition Score?

[BGalloway]

Hi everyone,

I was just thinking, in a lot of species there's a body condition score system. Cattle, goats, horses,sheep, alpacas, dogs, and cats all have a body condition score system in place. Usually it's on a 1-5 scale but some dairy cattle farms use a 1-10 scale.

All a body condition score tells you is essentially how much muscle and fat in total are on an animal, ie is the animal emaciated, underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. It is essentially an easy way to tell, at a glance or at a quick touch, if the animal needs to be fed more or less or if it is at an ideal weight. It tells you nothing about parasite load or underlying conditions.

My question is, does anyone else think it might be a good idea to make a body condition score system for leopard geckos? Why or why not? If you think there should be a body condition score system what criteria do you think should be used when grading, and how would you divide up the different grades?

I think that's it, hopefully this turns into an interesting discussion.

 

[Tommy13b]

I dont really think this could be done, the problem is that some leopard geckos have giant blood in them. It would be very hard to make this scale because leopard geckos come in all diffrent sizes, small females around 40g would have a very low score while super giants would have a very high score.

 

[JordanAng420]

I don't think she's talking about weight, but more so "body condition" as in, how the gecko carries it's weight, how the weight sits on the geckos body...things that could be noted could be tail width, visibility of bones such as hips...muscle mass, head structure...

I think a BCS for geckos, or reptiles in general for that matter, would be wonderful.

 

[BGalloway]

Maia's right, that's pretty much what I meant. Measurements used are usually relative, so you could compare a 70 pound goat with a 200 pounder, or a tiny jersy with a giant holstein.

So some examples of measures in preexisting systems are things like the amount of fat over the sacral vertebra(ie, indented triangle vs triangle, vs flat), fad pad over the sternum (nonexistent, thick, and huge), visibility of hooks and pins, ribs showing, and fat around the tail-head. So it's things that would be similar on any size animal. The system is all relative, ie a short gecko may be fat and a long gecko may be fat, or they could both be thin, or one or the other; its all relative and partly how each animal carries what it's got.

I think some good measures might be tail to neck ratio? I remember when I first got my gecko that his tail should be at least as wide as his neck. Visibility of spine would be a good idea, but how does an obese gecko's back look? Do overweight geckos get fat rolls around their feet?

We might need descriptions of each criteria in an underweight, normal, and obese gecko. That would be a 1-3 system. geckos falling between these three would make it a 1-5 Body Condition Score (BCS) system.

 

[ariana]

i like this idea

 

[BGalloway]

So it would probably be helpful to get some pictures, or link to pictures, of emaciated, thin, normal, overweight, and obese geckos. Other people's input and criticism is welcome and encouraged, if this system is to work even for just the few interested people we need to make sure it is applicable to every leopard gecko, so parameters must be true for the majority of geckos, ie most thin geckos will have thin tails and obese geckos will have very thick tails etc. Does anyone even own an obese gecko?

I think for criteria the main one could be tail girth? Honestly other things would work too and we should definitely have some options but this one is all I can think of now.

1=Thin tail where bones are almost visible. The tail has so little fat reserves in it that it is like an anole's tail (I think that would be a good comparison), it is widest at the tail base.

2=Thin tail with some meat to it. The fat in the tail causes it to have a slight "curve" but the tail is still narrower, at its widest point, than the neck of the gecko.

3=Normal "healthy" tail. The fat reserves are adequate to give the tail shape, with the widest point being wider than the tail base. The widest part of the tail is about the same width as the neck.

4="Hefty" tail, appropriate for breeding females. The tail is thicker than in 3 and is wider than the neck (?). Other criteria should be added here I think.

5=Obese. The tail is so rotund that when the tail is only slightly curved there are wrinkles. The tail is very large. Anyone with an obese gecko could help out by giving a better tail description.

Please feel free to comment on how to improve the system. We'll definitely need more criteria to use and input from others if this system has a hope of working out. Even criticism on why such a system could never work would be appreciated.

 

[JordanAng420]

So it would probably be helpful to get some pictures, or link to pictures, of emaciated, thin, normal, overweight, and obese geckos. Other people's input and criticism is welcome and encouraged, if this system is to work even for just the few interested people we need to make sure it is applicable to every leopard gecko, so parameters must be true for the majority of geckos, ie most thin geckos will have thin tails and obese geckos will have very thick tails etc. Does anyone even own an obese gecko?

I think for criteria the main one could be tail girth? Honestly other things would work too and we should definitely have some options but this one is all I can think of now.

1=Thin tail where bones are almost visible. The tail has so little fat reserves in it that it is like an anole's tail (I think that would be a good comparison), it is widest at the tail base.

2=Thin tail with some meat to it. The fat in the tail causes it to have a slight "curve" but the tail is still narrower, at its widest point, than the neck of the gecko.

3=Normal "healthy" tail. The fat reserves are adequate to give the tail shape, with the widest point being wider than the tail base. The widest part of the tail is about the same width as the neck.

4="Hefty" tail, appropriate for breeding females. The tail is thicker than in 3 and is wider than the neck (?). Other criteria should be added here I think.

5=Obese. The tail is so rotund that when the tail is only slightly curved there are wrinkles. The tail is very large. Anyone with an obese gecko could help out by giving a better tail description.

Please feel free to comment on how to improve the system. We'll definitely need more criteria to use and input from others if this system has a hope of working out. Even criticism on why such a system could never work would be appreciated.

I agree. Here is a picture I feel to be a BCS of "2"

Here's cherry...she' about a "3" PERFECT, IMO.

Then again, here's my raptor, who's pushing a "5" but I consider him still a "4" as of today...

 

[SFgeckos]

Great discussion! I've used body condition scores on my animals for many years, I originally based my own system using a modified "Purina canine/female" BCS 1-5 scale. Maia can probably provide more information about this with her clinical background.

Now that I think of it, I'm actually surprised nobody has ever asked me about it because I've used body score conditions to describe my animals in the past. I keep my females 4-4.5 and my males usually 2.5-3 at the most. In my experience, with both geckos and snakes, females with BSC of 5 don't produce as well or can have increased incidence of dystocia.

Jon

 

[BGalloway]

Hi Jon,

Could you describe what criteria you use to determine your geckos scores? A snake scale would be awesome as well.

I think the proposed system definitely needs some more criteria relating to body type because in Maia's post the 4's body seems to be sturdier than the 3, and the 3 seems "thicker" than the 2.

 

[CallDr]

From a "layman's" view there needs to be a rating at certain ages. Here is where I get so called lost.

Let me explain what I can't find. It's age and not just weight.

From what I understand a Full Adult ( age ) is about 1 1/2 to 2 years old.

The info that would be nice is age. Baby till what? 4 weeks? Juvinile? Sub Adult? Adult? and Full Adult?

This seems valuable because of the listed "hatch dates".