The effect of birth weight and time of day on the thermal response of newborn water buffalo calves

Abstract

During the 1st days of life, water buffalo calves, especially those with low birth weight, are susceptible to hypothermic mortality due to scarce energy reserves provided by fats. This means that monitoring the thermal state of newborns is essential. The objectives of the present study were to apply infrared thermography (IRT) in 109 buffalo calves to detect differences in the surface temperatures of six thermal windows –lacrimal gland, lacrimal caruncle, periocular region, nostrils, ear canal, pelvic limbs–, and determine their association to birth weight during the first 6 days of life. The calves were divided into four categories according to their weight (Q1, 37.8–41.25 kg; Q2, 41.3–46.3 kg; Q3, 46.4–56.3 kg; Q4, 56.4–60.3 kg). The thermographic images were recorded in the morning and afternoon. Results showed that the animals in Q4 registered the highest temperatures in all the thermal windows, and that these were higher in the afternoon (p < 0.0001). When considering the thermal windows, those located in the facial region recorded the highest temperatures; in contrast, the temperatures at the pelvic limbs remained below the average values of the other windows (33.41 and 33.76°C in the morning and afternoon, respectively). According to these results, the birth weight of water buffaloes is a factor that alters their thermoregulation during the 1st days of life, a condition that can be partially compensated by colostrum intake to promote development of an efficient thermoregulatory mechanism in water buffalo calves.

Assessment of Pain and Inflammation in Domestic Animals Using Infrared Thermography: A Narrative Review

“…This trait might have a repercussion on subproduct quality ( Figure 12 ). Similarly, the application of IRT to detect subtle temperature changes in neonates [ 142 , 143 , 144 ], stress [ 141 , 145 , 146 ], or to assess the health status of the animals [ 147 , 148 ] must consider its use together with other techniques to improve the sensitivity and specificity of IRT as a complementary diagnostic method. Finally, it is important to consider that the current focus of IRT is to evaluate and monitor acute pain.…”

Assessment of thermal response, cardiorespiratory parameters and post-operative analgesia in dogs undergoing ovariohysterectomy with different combinations of epidural analgesia and isoflurane

“…Veterinary medicine is adopting IRT as a non-invasive tool for assessing animal autonomic activation following nociception and stress (Travain et al 2015;Mota-Rojas et al 2021a,b,c,d). This technique detects changes in surface circulation or dermal microcirculation (Childs, 2018) that reflect sympathetic activity and alterations in the surface temperature in individuals perceiving harmful stimuli (Stewart et al 2010;Zanghi 2016;Mota-Rojas et al 2021e,f,g;Mota-Rojas et al 2022a,b;Napolitano et al 2023). In essence, this tool assesses temperature changes (Küls et al 2017) and has been used to detect exercise-induced stress (Esteves Trindade et al 2019), transport-induced stress in sheep (Bartolomé et al 2019), to evaluate chronic pain (McQueen et al 2017), to predict infections in swine (Schaefer et al 2004), to assess neonatal thermostability (Villanueva-García et al 2021; Mota-Rojas et al 2022a; Gómez-Prado et al 2022; Lezama-García et al 2022; Napolitano et al 2023), to identify sick zoo animals (Mota-Rojas et al 2022b,c), and to discriminate anxiety from pain in dogs (Lush and Ijichi, 2018).…”

Strategies and Mechanisms of Thermal Compensation in Newborn Water Buffaloes

“…It causes severe physiological changes in the animal induced by thermoregulation mechanisms to restore thermoneutrality. Hypothermia in newborn ruminants is considered one of the main problems that increase neonatal mortality in livestock [ 1 , 2 , 3 ].…”

“…Hypothermia occurs mainly for intrinsic and extrinsic causes [ 7 ], such as deficient or null colostrum intake, low birth weight, exposure to low temperature, and amniotic fluid on the skin. [ 3 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

“…However, there is controversy about its use due to the sensitivity of the different central and peripheral thermal windows that can decrease or improve the effectiveness of this tool [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. For this reason, the objective of this review is to analyze behavioral, physiological, and morphological strategies, and the importance of colostrum consumption as a thermal compensation mechanism, in newborn water buffaloes to cope with environmental changes that affect their thermoneutral state, as well as to discuss the importance of IRT monitoring to identify hypothermic states [ 3 , 4 , 11 ].…”