Monitoring the body temperature of cows and calves using video recordings from an infrared thermography camera

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the variability of temperatures measured by a video-based infrared camera (IRC) in comparison to rectal and vaginal temperatures. The body surface temperatures of cows and calves were measured contactless at different body regions using videos from the IRC. Altogether, 22 cows and 9 calves were examined. The differences of the measured IRC temperatures among the body regions, i.e. eye (mean: 37.0 °C), back of the ear (35.6 °C), shoulder (34.9 °C) and vulva (37.2 °C), were significant (P< 0.01), except between eye and vulva (P = 0.99). The quartile ranges of the measured IRC temperatures at the 4 above mentioned regions were between 1.2 and 1.8 K. Of the investigated body regions the eye and the back of the ear proved to be suitable as practical regions for temperature monitoring. The temperatures of these 2 regions could be gained by the use of the maximum temperatures of the head and body area. Therefore, only the maximum temperatures of both areas were used for further analysis. The data analysis showed an increase for the maximum temperature measured by IRC at head and body area with an increase of rectal temperature in cows and calves. The use of infrared thermography videos has the advantage to analyze more than 1 picture per animal in a short period of time, and shows potential as a monitoring system for body temperatures in cattle.

Infrared thermography as a method for evaluating the heat tolerance in dairy cows

“…This was confirmed by principal factor analysis in the afternoon, because the values had higher weights for thermographic measurements of the udder (lat-udder and post-udder) and rectal temperature, which is in agreement with Hovinen et al (2008). Infrared thermography scans the surface temperature of the animal (Hoffmann et al, 2013), which varies with blood flow to the tissues and the amount of heat lost to the environment (Gil et al, 2013). Therefore, the optimal region found to identify the animal under heat stress in our study was the udder, due to extensive blood flow.…”

“…Recent studies have shown that infrared thermography can be a useful tool for assessing stress and animal welfare (Stewart et al, 2005) and there are speculations about its application in the area of animal health and production (Berry et al, 2003). The measurement of body temperature is commonly used to check the health of the animal, but the method used (rectal temperature measurement) may cause stress and therefore lead to misleading results (Hoffmann et al, 2013). Infrared thermography is an alternative, as it is a modern, safe, and non-invasive visualization technique of the thermal profile Knížková et al, 2007).…”

Use of infrared thermography to evaluate the influence of the of Climatic Factors in the Reproduction and Lactation of Dairy Cattle

“…As médias das temperaturas da vulva variaram entre 33ºC no mês de maio, até 38,3ºC no mês de abril, semelhante à faixa de temperatura com média de 35,0 ± 2,4ºC [27]; Hoffmann et al [11] obtendo média de 37,2°C e de 36,90 ± 0,50°C [24]. A despeito das diferenças das origens genéticas, da geografia e do clima, verifica-se padrão similar para as faixas de temperatura da vulva em vacas de leite.…”

A Review of Methods to Measure Animal Body Temperature in Precision Farming

“…It is the key to obtain comparable and repeatable data within a period of time. Researchers (Hoffmann et al, 2012;Schaefer et al, 2012) have adapted automatic devices for temperature recording using a software comparing pictures in order to obtain reliable data.…”

“…Potential uses of the IR method for the early detection of diseases in cattle are studied by many authors (Schaefer et al, 2004;Hoffmann et al, 2012 ;Poikalainen et al, 2012), the latter proposing a fully automated system of measurement installed close to the livestock waterers. Montano et al (2009) showed that the IR technique, especially on the extremities of the body, is relevant to the study of feed efficiency of steers.…”