PSIV-A-3 Body Temperature Monitoring Using Subcutaneously and Vaginal Sensors in Grazing Cows

Abstract

Abstract Body temperature is an indicator of animal health and can be used to detect harmful physiological events in advance of clinical symptoms. Traditionally, body temperature in cattle is determined with a rectal thermometer and requires the animal to be restrained. Although systems to automatically monitor cattle health in confinement operations exist, assessing the real-time temperature of grazing cows is not common. Our object was to demonstrate an integrated sensor network for monitoring pastured cattle body temperature in comparison with temperature measured by a vaginal logger. The integrated sensor network (Mahindra & Mahindra; Mumbai, India) communicates with the data obtained from a subcutaneous temperature sensor (EmbediVet, Livestock Labs Inc.; Pittsburg, PA) to a cloud-based data storage platform. The vaginal temperature was measured by an implantable temperature logger (Micro-T 16-bit; Star Oddi, Iceland). Vaginal devices were inserted into the vagina using a controlled internal drug release (CIDR) cleaned of progesterone. The subcutaneous temperature sensors were surgically implanted through a 2cm vertical incision in the neck. Data from the implantable sensor were transmitted via Bluetooth communication to a solar-powered base station. The subcutaneous sensors and vaginal loggers were deployed on 10 grazing cattle over a period of 6 months. Data from only 4 subcutaneous sensors consistently reported data. Temperature values measured by the subcutaneous sensors had no statistical relationship (P=0.595) with body temperature measured by the vaginal temperature loggers. However, the subcutaneous sensors were able to detect changes in body temperature over time within-animal, indicating that errors in predicting temperature were more likely due to frameshift issues than an inability to track true temperature. Further improvements in data-processing and higher sample size are needed to maximize the usability of this sensor network for monitoring cattle body temperature.