EQUITANA Innovation Prize: an early warning system for colic

EQUITANA Innovation prize

A sensor monitors the movement patterns of a horse at night and sounds an alarm if it notices anything unusual. Five vets have developed the device which enables help to be provided faster in an emergency.

A horse tosses and turns from one side to the other, bathed in sweat, or lies apathetically in its box and refuses to get up. Swift aid is of the utmost urgency when a horse exhibits such symptoms. Especially at night, however, it is very rare that someone at the stables is able to recognize symptoms in time. Colichek, a new early warning system for which its inventors received an EQUITANA Innovation Prize in the spring, is intended to change this for the future. The five vets who collaborated on the project have produced a device which learns the movement patterns of a horse, constantly analyses them and then reports any divergences to an app alarm. This means that an owner can check if everything is OK with his horse at any time. The sensor, attached to a horse's leg by a cuff, is not just able to preserve a horse’s health, breeders can also use it for birth monitoring.