The use of digital infrared thermal imaging to detect estrus in gilts

Infrared thermography: A potential noninvasive tool to monitor udder health status in dairy cows

“…IRT is widely used to identify localized areas of inflammation, such as mastitis in lactating cows [17-19], foot and mouth disease [20], assessment of tissue damage and healing due to hot versus cold branding in cattle [21], Laminitis [7,8], detection of bovine viral diarrhea in calves [22], monitoring respiratory disorders [23], Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae infection in pigs [24], detection of estrus and prediction of ovulation in cattle and gilts [5,6,25,26], to assess the effect of scrotal temperature on sperm production in bulls [27-29], assessing meat quality in pigs [30], for identification of stress [31], measurement of feather cover [32], effects of machine milking on teat and udder [33], surface temperature, estimation of heat and methane production in dairy cattle [34], screening of cattle for feed utilization efficiency [9,35], pregnancy diagnosis in mare and wild animals [36,37], evaluation of thermal status of neonatal pigs [38], monitoring stress during animal transit and welfare in wild animals [39], assessment of surface temperature of buffaloe bulls and its correlation with rectal temperature [40] and for the evaluation of thermoregulatory capacity of dairy buffaloes [41]. …”

“…Infrared thermography (IRT) is a simple, effective, on-site, and noninvasive method that detects surface heat, which is emitted as infrared radiation and generates pictorial images without causing radiation exposure. In bovine medicine, IRT is used for early detection of subclinical mastitis [4] (Table-1), heat detection and prediction of ovulation in cows [5,6], detection and assessment of lameness [7,8], assessment of animal welfare, and feed utilization efficiency [9]. This review presents a more comprehensive understanding of the potential application of the IRT technique to monitor udder health status and early detection of mastitis in dairy animals.…”

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

“…In addition to the adapted choices and settings of the materials and technical specifications, a set of external factors must be taken into account when taking measurements (these precautions are summarized in Table 2) since the temperature measured by IR reflects the surface temperature of the animal, which is dependent on its internal body temperature and the external conditions such as ambient temperature, humidity, air speed, solar radiations, and hot or cold radiations from the walls around the animal at the time of measurement. All these potential bias are recommended to be controlled in order to obtain reliable, accurate and repeatable results, as pointed out by Sykes et al (2012), who faced these problem when studying sexual status of gilts. The controlling and recording of all these parameters is then essential to further exploitation of the results.…”

Thermographic evaluation of primary closure and second intention healing in dairy calves

“…Although data were corrected for individual calf variation during data analysis, all calves experienced diarrhea, which might lead to dehydration, affecting skin turgor and thermal emission by the skin. Although the thermographic camera in our study adjusted image readings for ambient temperature and humidity, other environmental conditions, including dirtiness or wetness of the hair coat of the animal, air speed, solar radiations, and hot or cold radiations from the walls surrounding the animal at the time of measurement, might have affected emissivity of the skin . We were able practically and subjectively to assess only for wetness or dirtiness of the hair coat.…”

“…Although the thermographic camera in our study adjusted image readings for ambient temperature and humidity, other environmental conditions, including dirtiness or wetness of the hair coat of the animal, air speed, solar radiations, and hot or cold radiations from the walls surrounding the animal at the time of measurement, might have affected emissivity of the skin. 27,28 We were able practically and subjectively to assess only for wetness or dirtiness of the hair coat. Our study used a fixed time point, single image thermographic assessment.…”