Electrocardiographic pill for cattle heart rate determination

Abstract

Decreased agricultural profit margins and recent bioterrorism concerns have led to an increased interest in monitoring livestock health. Heart rate and core body temperature are traditional vital parameters for cattle health assessment, as they provide warnings for illness and disease. However, obtaining these data in the field is time and labor intensive, which speaks to the need for solutions that provide continuous and automatic acquisition of these parameters. This paper presents the design of a pill that can remain in an animal's reticulum and use electrocardiographic techniques to ascertain heart rate. The wired prototype has been tested with a fistulated steer. These tests demonstrate that consistent heart vector data can be acquired even in the presence of animal movement and rumination. After minor processing, these signals are suitable for use with peak detection circuitry that can automate heart rate determination.

Welfare implication of measuring heart rate and heart rate variability in dairy cattle: literature review and conclusions for future research

“…It has the advantage of continuous monitoring of data collection, yet, in case of uncoded signal transmission it often occurs that the studied animal move too far from the signal receiver and the receivers start to record the signals of the closest animals. Also, implanted devices were used in a recent experiment (Warren et al, 2008), but their application is not widespread.…”

“…It has the advantage of continuous monitoring of data collection, yet, in case of uncoded signal transmission it often occurs that the studied animal move too far from the signal receiver and the receivers start to record the signals of the closest animals. Also, implanted devices were used in a recent experiment (Warren et al, 2008), but their application is not widespread.When interaction of animals and crowding cannot be avoided, especially in the milking parlour and in the premilking waiting area in loose housing systems, girths have to be set tight enough to prevent the shifting of electrodes (Kovács et al, 2012a) because, checking the device's position and fastening is difficult to implement further on. However, sudden pressure on the cattle's chest can also induce bradycardia (Clabough and Swanson, 1989).…”

Potential development of Irish agricultural sustainability indicators for current and future policy evaluation needs

“…Other data on animal welfare have come through additional survey exploring aspects such as livestock mortality rates (Mee et al, 2014). Recent technologies can enable very detailed collection of animal welfare data through, for example, automated audio and visual analysis of livestock (Berckmans, 2014) and wearable (Neethirajan, 2017) or internal (Warren et al, 2008) monitoring devices. Surveys could employ these techniques to study specific animal health and welfare concerns, or use data collected from these methods if farmers implement them independently or, for example, as part of future QA schemes.…”