Termography. Current status and advances in livestock animals and in veterinary medicine

Introduction Innovative technologies and biotechnologies contribute greatly to the advancement in animal science. Nowadays one of the most important challenges in this field is to determine reliable measures of animals’ overall status. This means being able to assess both the positive and negative responses given by an organism in response to its environment, taking previous experience as well as genetic background into consideration. To evaluate this response, non invasive indicators may be very useful to obtain reliable data without directly interfering with the organisms, thus avoiding undue stress reactions. Infrared thermography may be a suitable method to reach this goal, it being a non-contact detecting technology. This tool may be successfully used in research on livestock as well as on companion and laboratory animals, but also in research on other animal species. Despite unavoidable difficulties in establishing the most sensible and reliable images and the body areas where temperatures can be evaluated, validating these measurements and then establishing their physiological and/or pathological meaning, infrared thermography has found many biological applications. In veterinary medicine and animal production it has been applied most recently mainly as a potentially diagnostic and preventive tool. It may, for example, be used to detect inflammation or subclinical pathological signs before the disease becomes evident. In relation to welfare evaluation, thermography measurements may be monitored on unrestrained animals which are free to perform their natural behaviours. The measurements, in conjunction with other scientifically assessed physiological and behavioural variables, may allow the evaluation of the organisms’ negative stress reactions. Moreover, data may be recorded remotely both during the daytime and overnight, thus allowing animals to be studied in the field. This book, starting with the explanation of the scientific and technical fundamentals of thermography, deals with its main applications in livestock and more widely in veterinary medicine. Information concerning the results of this technology obtained from animals’ physiology and pathology, and on their reproduction and production, are included, as well as its application to the study of infectious diseases. An interesting field of application is also in animal transport, where thermal images may be very useful in detecting the critical points for animals when travelling long distances at high or low environmental temperatures. Other interesting topics relate to the possibility of applying infrared thermography to laboratory animals and animal care, and to wild and exotic animals. In conclusion, infrared thermography is an innovative and very promising tool to deepen human knowledge of organisms, and also, from a more practical viewpoint, to improve human- animal interaction and husbandry systems.