Remote Noninvasive Assessment of Pain and Health Status in Cattle

Abstract

SynopsisCattle behavior is frequently monitored to determine health and wellness state of the animal. The objective of this review is to describe potential benefits and challenges of remotely monitoring cattle behavior with available methodologies including clinical illness scores, visual monitoring, accelerometers, pedometers, feed intake and behavioral monitoring, global position systems, real time location systems, thermography images, and rumen telemetry temperature bolus. The behavior of interest, labor required, and monitoring expenses all need to be taken into consideration before deciding which remote behavioral monitoring device is most appropriate.Monitoring the feeding behavior of an animal over a period of time allows establishment of a baseline against which deviations in subsequent behavioral patterns can be evaluated.Interpretation of multiple behavioral responses as an aggregate indicator of animal wellness status rather than as individual outcomes may be a more accurate measure of true state of animal pain or wellness status. Key Points Cattle behavior is frequently monitored to determine health and wellness state.

Determination of value of bovine respiratory disease control using a remote early disease identification system compared with conventional methods of metaphylaxis and visual observations1

“…Cattle behavior can also be monitored remotely and may be indicative of changes in wellness status (Theurer et al, 2013a). Previous work documented changes in feeding patterns during naturally occurring BRD ABSTRACT: Mitigation of the deleterious effects of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is an important issue in the cattle industry.…”

Temporal-spatial heterogeneity in animal-environment contact: Implications for the exposure and transmission of pathogens

“…Recently, the availability of telemetric technologies has facilitated the collection of empirical data that can be used to characterize the contact structure among hosts and between hosts and their environment. Proximity loggers have been used to describe close social encounters in both humans and animals151617. Animal movement data collected using global positioning and other triangulation and accelerometer systems can be used to both characterize direct contacts and to describe the interactions between animals and their associated environment1114.…”

A glimpse of the future in animal nutrition science. 2. Current and future solutions

“…The premise of PLF systems is that fully automated continuous monitoring of individual animals will enhance the ability of the producers to detect and manage animal health, productivity/ reproduction, and environmental-impact aspects of their livestock operations (Berckmans, 2015). A non-inclusive list of sensor technologies (Bewley et al, 2015;Rutten et al, 2013;Theurer et al, 2013a;Wolfger et al, 2015d) developed for beef and dairy cattle applications include automated-scale technologies to measure milk yield and body weight; in-line sensors to measure milk components (fat); in-cow sensors to measure rumen temperature and pH (reticulorumen boluses); on-cow sensors to measure physical activity (pedometers, accelerometers), feeding behavior (ultra-wideband radio frequency identification), and rumination (accelerometers, acoustics); and off-cow sensors to measure skin-surface temperature (infrared thermography) and body-fat reserves (automated image analysis). The availability of novel and more cost-effective sensor technologies for PLF applications is expected to grow exponentially in the future due to the ongoing development of new sensor technologies primarily for non-agricultural applications and advances in computing systems (e.g., wireless communications, cloud storage).…”