Remotely Sensed Imagery for Early Detection of Respiratory Disease in Pigs: A Pilot Study

摘要

Respiratory disease in pigs causes suffering in infected animals and economic losses to producers. One of the most appropriate approaches to minimising these negative effects is by the early detection of infected animals. This pilot study aimed to use computer-based techniques to measure changes in temperature (eye and ear-base temperature), heart rate and respiration rate of pigs from thermal-infrared and conventional images. These measures, together with clinical observations, were obtained from pigs that were infected with (APP) and from pigs that were healthy. Infected pigs showed higher temperature and heart rate than healthy pigs across the period analysed. Respiration rate showed less difference between infected and healthy pigs. In addition, the biggest changes in these measures were recorded from six hours before the clinical observations identified sick animals. Results have highlighted that computer vision techniques can provide important and useable data regarding physiological changes that can indicate early signs of respiratory infection in pigs. This could aid the management of the disease, increasing the success of the treatment and decreasing the rate of severe cases and death.