Use of thermal imaging for the early detection of signs of disease in pigs challenged orally with Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli

Abstract

A total of 27 piglets were randomly assigned to three treatment groups (control, infection with Salmonella enterica serover Typhimurium KCTC 2515 (ST) and infection with Escherichia coli KCTC 2571 (EC)) in a completely randomized design to early detection of signs of disease based on body temperature. Totally three inoculations were done consisting of 14 days each and then thermal images were captured to calculate body temperature of pigs at 0, 2, 6, 12, and 24 h and then every 24 h up to 14 days post inoculation. A reduced average daily gain (ADG) was observed in the first week of all three post inoculation (P < 0.05), while the gain:feed ratio was decreased at first week during first inoculation in both ST and EC group compared to control (P < 0.05). Body temperature was elevated in ST infected piglets at 24 h, peaked at 72 h (P < 0.05) and remained elevated, however, the EC induced piglets showed a subnormal body temperature throughout the experimental period relative to the control (P < 0.05). Taken together, the results indicate that signs of disease following experimentally induced bacterial infection in pigs can be detected quickly and easily using thermal images.

Thermal imaging and computer vision technologies for the enhancement of pig husbandry: a review

“…4 shows different pig diseases detection and ROI tracking using IRT imaging system. Islam et al [52] aimed to explore the early detection of disease signs based on changes in pig body temperature. The researchers conducted three inoculations and monitored the piglet body temperatures at specific intervals: 0, 2, 6, 12, and 24 hours post-inoculation and, subsequently, every 24 hours for a period of up to 14 days.…”

The Application of Cameras in Precision Pig Farming: An Overview for Swine-Keeping Professionals

“…Numerous studies have shown that the growth rate is significantly affected if both are not available in the right proportions. Without proper nutrition, the animals can become depressed and are vulnerable to outbursts such as fighting among themselves [12,[102][103][104][105][106][107]. Water and food are interdependent and linearly related; food behavior, especially, depends on water intake [105].…”

“…Early disease detection is a practice to reduce the mortality rate through illness or infection. The following incident points out that the disease monitoring process cannot be ignored, especially in the fight against epidemics: in 2018, 200 million pigs were culled due to the swine flu outbreak in China [117,118] and 8 million pigs in Korea [102], which did catastrophic damage to the livestock industry. Disease detection is essential to ensure the health of pigs and prevent epidemics from transferring from pigs to humans.…”

“…Since most infections cause a fever, body temperature fluctuation is an easy way to identify bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), Salmonella typhimurium infection, Escherichia coli infection, etc. [102]. The body temperature of pigs is variable in different body parts; each part, e.g., the eyes, nose, and legs, has a different normal temperature level [119,120].…”

“…However, that study required human resources; a later study sought to enable early disease detection by IRI [98][99][100][101]. Subsequently, utilizing IRI for early disease detection in pigs suffering from Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli infection was proposed by a previous author [102]. A pig's average daily gain was correlated with its temperature before infection and after infection by using thermal images from the literature.…”