A Pilot Study on Measurement and Modeling of Surface Area of Horses

The surface area of an animal is of great importance in its interaction with the environment concerning physical parameters but also for the physiological function of the animal, e.g. for data concerning metabolism, heat exchange and dosage of drugs. The aimof this study was to measure body surface area and geometrical body quantities in research horses and to find an equation based on well-defined geometrical quantities to estimate the surface area of a horse. The surface area was measured on ten horses with two independent methods; triangulation and stereo photo grammetry using a video technique. Twenty-three geometrical body dimensions were measured on each horse. Each body dimension was correlated to the measured surface area by stereo photo grammetry. The body dimension/s best correlated to the area was picked for the final formula for estimation of body surface area. It was concluded that it is possible to find an equation to calculate the surface area of a horse based on geometrical body dimensions.