BRIEF COMMUNICATION: The use of infrared thermography and feeding behaviour for early disease detection in New Zealand dairy calves

摘要

Neonatal calf diarrhoea (NCD) is a disease impacting livestock industries economically and in terms of animal health and welfare. In New Zealand, the most prevalent pathogens associated with NCD are rotavirus and Cryptosporidium (Mawly et al. 2015), but other common pathogens include coronavirus and Salmonella. By the time an animal presents with clinical signs of disease, much of the associated tissue damage to the intestinal submucosa may have already occurred, hence affecting production. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods for early disease detection, which ideally could be incorporated into automated systems for real-time, remote sensing.