Livestock Research: Animal Welfare Research Group

• Developing automated systems to remotely measure animal temperature by infrared thermography.
• Develop and apply biomarkers of stress, pain and health status of livestock species, using minimally-invasive samples, e.g. saliva, feces, hair, feathers.

• Febrile diseases can be detected in changes to radiated body heat, often before changes to core body temperature. Measuring radiated heat by infrared thermography provides an early warning of disease. Current research is focused on swine barns and in beef cattle feedlots, but is equally applicable to poultry and dairy barns.
• Increases in radiated temperature respond to immunological challenges such as vaccination. The response is being used to compare the febrile effects of different vaccines to the same pathogens.
• Radiated body heat is a reflection of underlying metabolic processes. Energetically-challenged animals conserve heat by reducing radiated energy losses. Thus, measuring radiated heat may be used to identify those animals that are more metabolically efficient. Current research in this area is focused on swine and beef cattle.
• Pain can be detected by a short, sharp decline in radiated temperature of the lachrymal region of the eye due vasoconstriction. This response is used to study effects of procedures that are potentially painful, e.g. tail docking and castration of pigs, or to compare methods of pain relief.
• Stressors such as handling and transport induce metabolic changes in a host of biochemical compounds, including steroid hormones and acute phase proteins. Measurement of corticosteroids in minimally-invasive samples provides a means of assessing stress responses of animals with minimum disturbance due to sample collection.

1. Repeatability of radiated thermal measurements of beef steers. The objective is to test if measurement of radiated temperature is a quantitative biomarker of an animal’s thermoregulatory processes in relation to underlying metabolic activity, and responses to environmental conditions. Repeatability of radiated thermal measurements over time is a necessary requirement to utilise these measurements as a biomarker of thermoregulation.

2. Testing the efficacy of infrared imaging of groups of piglets to detect febrile responses to vaccination. Two different vaccines from different manufacturers are being used to model febrile response of piglets. Thermographic images are taken with an infrared camera mounted on the ceiling of the barn. The objective is to determine if a range in febrile responses can be detected from infrared images of groups of pigs in a pen.

3. Thermal and behavioural responses of weaned piglets to medicated and non-medicated feed. Previous research has indicated that thermal responses and clustering behaviour following vaccination have the potential for the early and automated detection of diseases of piglets. In this study the goal is to test these measurements for disease detection. A range in morbidity rates of weaned piglets is encouraged by withholding medicated feed from some animals. Radiated temperature and clustering behaviours are determined from the same infrared images recorded every 5 minutes.

4. Detection of febrile episodes due to illness in grower pigs by automated measures of feed intake, animal growth and radiated heat losses using infrared thermography. The goal is to test if infrared thermography of groups of pigs and of individual animals can be used to detect febrile responses related to illness in grower pigs. This is supported by the automated measurement of animal weight and feed consumption. The study is conducted on the same animals as used in Study #3 after the nursery groups are combined and transferred to a commercial pen. The pigs are individually tagged with EID and are fed using an automated feeding system that records individual pig weight and feed consumption. An infrared camera is mounted on the feeding system and records thermal images of each individual animal. In addition, a ceiling-mounted infrared camera records thermal images of the pen of animal every 5 minutes. The information being gathered includes animal weight, growth, feed consumption and temperature. These data are matched with daily observations of health status.

5. Testing the ability of infrared thermography to detect metabolically efficient grower pigs. The goal is to determine if thermal responses can be used to predict feed-efficient pigs by testing the thermoregulatory responses of grower pigs to 24 hours of feed withdrawal. The repeatability of the responses to feed withdrawal is tested 3 times during the grower phase. Infrared images are recorded of the pen every 5 minutes throughout the grower phase. Infrared images of individual animals are captured each time an animal enters an automated feeding system (Study #4). The hypothesis is that the most metabolically efficient animals will be those that exhibit the largest declines in radiated temperatures in response to feed withdrawal.

6. Repeatability in stress responses of grower pigs. Saliva samples are collected from pigs immediately prior to and following 24h of feed withdrawal (Study #5). Cortisol is measured in these samples as a biomarker of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response to stress. The test is conducted three times during the grower phase to determine repeatability. At market weight pigs are transported for 1 hour prior to arrival at the abattoir of the Lacombe Research Centre. Saliva samples for analysis of cortisol are collected prior to and following transport. The objective is to test if there is correlation between stress responses to feed withdrawal and transport. This would provide demonstration that a dynamic test of HPA activity might be used to identify stress-resistant animals.

7. Carcass characteristics of metabolically-efficient and stress-resistance pigs. This study is in collaboration with Dr. Manuel Juarez (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada). The objective is to determine if the pigs identified in Studies #4, #5 and #6 as feed-efficient or stress-resistant animals exhibit differences in carcass characteristics.

Publications

Book Chapters

• Schaefer A, Cook NJ. Heat generation and the role of infrared thermography in pathological conditions. In: Luzi F, Mitchell M, Costa LN, Redaelli V, editors. Thermography: Current status and advances in livestock animals and in veterinary medicine. Brescia: Fondazionne Iniziative Zooprofilacttiche E Zootecniche; 2013. p. 69-78. ISBN 978-88-97562-06-1.
• Cook NJ, Schaefer AL. Infrared thermography and disease surveillance. In: Luzi F, Mitchell M, Costa LN, Redaelli V, editors. Thermography: Current status and advances in livestock animals and in veterinary medicine. Brescia: Fondazione Iniziative Zooprofilattiche E Zootecniche; 2013. p. 79-89. ISBN 978-88-97562-06-1.

• Cook N., Timsit E., Colyn J., Chabot B., Liu T., Wolfger B. and Schaefer A., 2016. Assessing consistency in radiated thermal output of beef steers by infrared thermography. J. Imaging 2, 21, pp. 17,
• Cook NJ, Chabot B, Liu T, Bench C, Shaefer, A 2015. Infrared thermography detects febrile and behavioural responses to vaccination of weaned piglets. Animal 9, 339-346.
• Regev-Shoshani G, Church JS, Cook NJ, Schaefer AL, Miller C, 2013. Prophylactic nitric oxide treatment reduces incidence of bovine respiratory disease complex in beef cattle arriving at a feedlot. Research in Veterinary Science 95, 606-611.
• Cook NJ, Hayne SM, Rioja-Lang FC, Schaefer AL, Gonyou HW, 2013. The collection of multiple saliva samples from pigs and the effect on adrenocortical activity. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 93, 329-333.
• Valera M, Bartolome E, Sanchez MJ, Molina A, Cook N, Schaefer A., 2012. Changes in eye temperature and stress assessment in horses during show jumping competitions. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science 32:827-30.
• Schaefer AL, Cook NJ, Bench C, Chabot JB, Colyn J, Liu T, et al., 2012. The non-invasive and automated detection of bovine respiratory disease onset in receiver calves using infrared thermography. Research in Veterinary Science 93:928-35.
• Cook NJ, 2012. Minimally invasive sampling media and the measurement of corticosteroids as biomarkers of stress in animals. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 92:227-59.
• Cook NJ, Schaefer AL, Korver DR, Haley DB, Feddes JJR, Church JS, 2011. Minimally-invasive assessments of the behavioural and physiological effects of enriched colony cages on laying hens. The Open Agriculture Journal. 2011;5:10-8.
• Singh R, Cook NJ, Cheng KM, Silversides FG, 2009. Invasive and noninvasive measurment of stress in laying hens kept in conventional cages and in floor pens. Poultry Science. 88:1346-51.
• Cook NJ, Veira D, Church JS, Schaefer AL, 2009. Dexamethasone reduces transport-induced weight losses in beef calves. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 89:335-9.
• Cook NJ, Renema R, Wilkinson C, Schaefer AL, 2009. Comparisons among serum, egg albumin and yolk levels of corticosterone as biomarkers of basal and stimulated adrenocortical activity of laying hens. British Poultry Science. 50(5):620-33.
• Stewart M, Schaefer AL, Haley DB, Colyn J, Cook NJ, Stafford KJ, et al., 2008. Infrared thermography as a non-invasive method for detecting fear-related responses of cattle to handling procedures. Animal Welfare. 17:387-93.
• Schwartzkopf-Genswein KS, Booth-McLean ME, Shah MA, Entz T, Bach SJ, Mears GJ, et al., 2007. Effects of pre-haul management and transport duration on beef calf performance and welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 108:12-30.
• Schaefer AL, Cook NJ, Church JS, Basarab J, Perry BJ, Miller C, et al., 2007. The use of infrared thermography as an early indicator of bovine respiratory disease complex in calves. Research in Veterinary Science. 83:376-84.
• Schaefer AL, Perry BJ, Cook NJ, Miller C, Church JS, Tong AKW, et al., 2006. Infrared detection and nitric oxide treatment of bovine respiratory disease. Online Journal of Veterinary Research. 10(1):7-16.
• Cook NJ, Smykot AB, Holm DE, Fasenko G, Church J, 2006. Assessing feather cover of laying hens by infrared thermography. Journal of Applied Poultry Science. 15:274-9.
• Cook NJ, Schaefer AL, Church JS, 2006. Nutritional therapy modulates stress responses of elk (Cervus elaphus canadensis) to removal of velvet antler. Online Journal of Veterinary Research. 10(1):20-5.
• Church JS, Martz DG, Cook NJ. The use of digital video recorders (DVRs) for capturing digital video for use in both The Observer and Ethovision. Behaviour Research Methods. 2006;38(3):434-8.

• Banff Pork Seminar summary - Infrared thermography in the swine barn. Western Hog Journal 2016.