PSIII-4 Infrared thermography as a method for detecting pain in dairy calves in response to disbudding on-farm

Abstract

Abstract Measured using infrared thermography (IRT), changes in eye temperature, can be used to non-invasively measure pain in response to husbandry procedures such as disbudding in calves. Previous studies have manually recorded IRT in controlled studies, however, it would be of interest to determine if IRT could be used to measure changes in eye temperature in response to pain in an automated on-farm system. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine if IRT could be used to detect pain in dairy calves in response to disbudding on-farm. At 3 wk of age, 51 Friesian calves were allocated to 1 of 5 treatment groups: 1) sham handling (SHAM, n = 10), 2) cautery disbudding (DB, n = 11), 3) administration of local anesthetic (LA) and DB (LA+DB, n = 11), 4) administration of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and DB (NSAID+DB, n = 9) and 5) administration of LA, NSAID and DB (LA+NSAID+DB, n = 10). Eye temperature was measured using an IRT camera located next to an automatic calf milk feeder for 3 days before and after disbudding. During each calf’s visit to the feeder, IRT images were automatically recorded for the duration of the feeding bout. A mixed model analysis with splines was used to determine the effect of treatment on eye temperature over time. There was no overall effect of disbudding treatment on eye temperature (P = 0.22), but temperature appeared to increase in calves after disbudding or sham handling (P = 0.036). On average, calves visited the calf feeder 4 times/day, which may have been too infrequent to collect sufficient IRT images to detect a difference in eye temperature in response to disbudding. However, the increase in eye temperature after disbudding and handling may reflect a general stress response. Therefore, the automated use of IRT to measure eye temperature may be a useful non-invasive method to measure stress in calves.