Abstract
Thermography has grown in use in recent years. It is a valuable tool for measuring animal heat tolerance under heat stress conditions since it is a non-invasive, safe and practical methodology. Physiological variables such as respiration rate and eye temperature, and environmental variables such as air temperature and wet bulb temperature were analysed in animals from nine cattle breeds (Angus, Braford, Brangus, Canchim, Charolais, Hereford, Nelore, Simmental and Santa Gertrudis) and one bubaline (Mediterranean) at Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Positive correlations were observed between air temperature and respiration rate and eye temperature. Furthermore, the breed strongly influenced the eye temperature and respiration rate of the animals. Eye temperature showed strong correlation with air temperature and wet bulb temperature. Simmental and Nelore animals presented higher eye temperature values. Simmental presented alteration in respiratory rate before the other breeds and Nelore was the last breed to present this alteration. The inflection points in the broken line analysis indicated the environmental temperature limits at which breeds begin to change their respiration to compensate for environmental variation. The use of thermography has proven to be a technique with possible application to evaluate the temperature of animals. Logistic regression analysis allows us to observe how each breed behaves with the temperature change. Using respiration rates and eye temperatures it was possible to identify physiological limits for comfort in different breeds of bovine. In the future it would be interesting to conduct additional studies using other physiological variables and also other indices of climatic conditions.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available because they are data that were collected manually during the experiment and stored by the researchers in their personal files but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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To CAPES for scholarships.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design.
Renata A. Vieira: Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization.
Eduardo A. Dias: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Visualization.
Marcelo T. Stumpf: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Visualization.
Gabriel R. Pereira: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Visualization.
Julio O. J. Barcellos: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review & editing.
Giovani J. Kolling: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Visualization.
Concepta McManus: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision.
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The Ethics Committee approved the present study for Animal Use of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, number 22773.
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Vieira, R.A., Dias, E.A., Stumpf, M.T. et al. Use of thermography and physiological rate to assess heat tolerance in cattle breeds. Trop Anim Health Prod 55, 223 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-023-03613-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-023-03613-4