Our Way 1
COLLABORATIONS THIS WOULD BE A POWERFUL TOOL TO H
ELP VETS TO DOSE MEDICINE MORE CORRECTLY. “This would be a powerful tool to help vets to dose medicine more correctly, as well as determine whether the horse is overweight, or if it has certain areas of fat that could indicate a metabolic illness,” Zala says. SLU ENGINEERS ARE also working on synchronising the 3D scanner and the motion caption system to possibly help detect lameness in horses with the help of the 3D scanner in the future. “It is especially hard to see exactly where the problem is located on a high-speed trotter. They run so fast that all you see is a bunch of legs, and the human eye cannot detect such high-frequency movement. It’s therefore very hard to determine which leg is the problem, and if the horse is lame or if it just has an asymmetrical movement pattern. But we hope to be able to put sensors on the horse to measure its gait, and that eventually, the scanner can create a 3D film of the horse running. This would help us with a lameness assessment,” says Zala. Preparing for the scan. 127 horses have been scanned, but more are needed if the research is to succeed in developing an app for veterinarians. FUN FACT “An unexpected find is that at least 90% of the horses being scanned so far are overweight, even dressage and riding horses. So, we need to change our view of what ’normal‘ weight is for a horse,” says Zala Zgank. OUR WAY 1/2024 15