Abstract
A reliable, inexpensive, and portable electronic instrumentation system for monitoring small physiological movements of animals has been designed, developed and tested. In its application for monitoring chew rate in rumination studies, a bellows pneumograph and a miniature solid-state electronic transducer mounted on the animal's halter convert jaw movement into a pneumatic and then electrical signal for convenient data transmission, processing and storage on an event recorder. Operation of the monitoring system with less than ½% error has been experimentally verified over an input movement-frequency range to ¼ to 16 cycles/sec, a temperature range of −18 C to 65 C, and an input electrical supply as low as 93 VAC. Proper operation of the transducer module of the system has been shown to be independent of orientation over this range of test variables. Presently, the instrumentation system has been successfully used as a chew-rate monitor for approximately 1,400 steer-hr in feeding tests. Sufficient design and construction details are presented herein to permit local fabrication of an eight-channel monitor.
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