Weight

Defined as a body’s relative mass or the heaviness of an animal, object, or human being.

Summary

Weight is the heaviness of an object or living creature, or the force acting on the object or creature due to gravity or acceleration. Many objects in nature are not weighed, but commonly weighed objects and beings may include vehicles for road safety, persons for health monitoring purposes and sizing, animals for health monitoring, luggage carried in commercial transit, and food items for determination of price or value.

Average Weight of Common Household Animals

British Shorthair cat on scales at veterinary clinic.
©iStock.com/Dzurag

Household animals are frequently weighed for the purposes of monitoring their health and maturation. Each animal, like humans, has been given “healthy” or average weight ranges to determine weight class. Weight classes may include severely underweight, underweight, average weight, overweight, or obese. Average healthy weights are determined by bone structure size, lean muscle versus fat, and overall size comparatively to the number of pounds. Diet, activity levels, and genetics impact weight in animals as they do in humans.

Average common household animal weights include:

Small dogs: Between 3 and 22 pounds
Medium dogs: Between 20 and 60 pounds
Large dogs: Between 60 and 250
Small cat breeds: Between 3 and 8 pounds
Standard cat breeds: Between 8 and 11 pounds
Large cat breeds: Between 12 and 20 pounds
Small rabbit breeds: Between 2 and 6 pounds
Medium rabbit breeds: Between 5 and 8 pounds
Large rabbit breeds: Between 10 to 18 pounds, up to 20 pounds
Hedgehogs: Between 1 and 2 pounds
Ferrets: Between 1.5 and 4.5 pounds
Parakeets: Between 1.1 and 4.6 ounces
Macaws: Between 12 ounces and 4 pounds
Iguanas: Between 2.6 and 8.8 pounds
Bearded dragons: Between 14 and 19.4 ounces

Weighing Methods

Balance scale on wooden desk, turquoise background — Scales of justice on the wooden table
©iStock.com/seb_ra

Weight is most often measured via one of two methods.

Spring, pneumatic, or hydraulic scale: measuring local weight (i.e., the object or creature’s literal heaviness). These scales include bathroom scales, grocery market scales, or vehicle scales.
Balance scale: a measuring comparative weight between two objects, such as the type of scale that the symbolic “justice” holds, with two pans hanging on either end of levers.

Animals That Weight the Most

A Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) breaches out of the Atlantic Ocean. This endangered cetacean species migrates from the Northern Atlantic to the Caribbean each winter to breed or give birth. — Whales are the heaviest creatures on earth.
©Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock.com

The ten animals known to be the heaviest on earth include:

Whale
Plankton feeding shark
Elephant
Rhinoceros
Hippopotamus
Elephant Seal
Giraffe
Saltwater Crocodile
Bovini
Polar bear

Pronunciation

weyt

About the Author

Sandy Porter

Sandy Porter is a writer at A-Z Animals primarily covering house garden plants, mammals, reptiles, and birds. Sandy has been writing professionally since 2017, has a Bachelor’s degree and is currently seeking her Masters. She has had lifelong experience with home gardens, cats, dogs, horses, lizards, frogs, and turtles and has written about these plants and animals professionally since 2017. She spent many years volunteering with horses and looks forward to extending that volunteer work into equine therapy in the near future. Sandy lives in Chicago, where she enjoys spotting wildlife such as foxes, rabbits, owls, hawks, and skunks on her patio and micro-garden.