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

M Sathiyabarathi,Heartwin A Pushpadass,D N Das,R Dhinesh Kumar,M Sivaram,K P Ramesha,S Jeyakumar,M Arul Prakash,Mukund A Kataktalware,A Manimaran,G Jayaprakash

doi:10.14202/vetworld.2016.1075-1081

Abstract

The animal husbandry and livestock sectors play a major role in the rural economy, especially for the small and marginal farmers. India has the largest livestock population in the world and ranks first in the milk production. Mastitis is the most common and expensive infectious disease in dairy cattle. The global economic losses per year due to mastitis amounts to USD 35 billion and for Indian dairy industry ₹6000 crores per year. Early detection of mastitis is very important to reduce the economic loss to the dairy farmers and dairy industry. Automated methods for early and reliable detection of mastitis are currently in focus under precision dairying. Skin surface temperature is an important indicator for the diagnosis of cow’s illnesses and for the estimation of their physiological status. 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 human and bovine medicine, IRT is used as a diagnostic tool for assessment of normal and physiological status.

Highlights

India ranks first in the world total milk production, the total milk production in the country being 146.3 million tons in 2014-2015 [1]
Delay in the detection of subclinical mastitis and lack of appropriate and accurate technique are contributing to the higher incidence of clinical mastitis
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Summary

Introduction

India ranks first in the world total milk production, the total milk production in the country being 146.3 million tons in 2014-2015 [1]. IRT is widely used to identify localized areas of inflammation, such as mastitis in lactating cows [17,18,19], 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 [27,28,29], 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].

Results

Conclusion