Continuous recording reliability analysis of three monitoring systems for horse core body temperature

The short-term continuous recording reliability of three different monitoring technologies (blood temperature, rectal temperature, and a remote telemetry-based gastrointestinal temperature) for horse body temperature was analyzed. Recording reliability of each technology was assessed by calculating the corruption rate (the relative amount of unusable data collected) for data collected over a 6 h time frame. In a subsequent trial, recording reliability was assessed for the telemetry system during two consecutive data collection days, including a period of transport. Calculations were made for the total percentage of corrupt data and the percentage of corrupt 5 min intervals. The remote, continuous technology performed comparably for total percent of corrupt data and demonstrated a reduced percentage of corrupt 5 min intervals, compared with both directly connected technologies. It also performed similarly over two consecutive days of monitoring, and did not differ for monitoring within a stall or a trailer. Based on the results of this analysis, it is recommended to account for expected data loss in transmission of remote monitoring by instrumenting additional animals and sampling with greater frequency.