Resumen de Utilización de la termografía de infrarrojos durante el ordeño para la detección de infecciones intramamarias en ovejas
A. Castro Costa, Gerardo Caja López, Ahmed A. K. Salama, Maristela Rovai, C. Flores, J. Aguiló
A total of 83 Manchega and Lacaune dairy ewes were used in 2 experiments for assessing the ability of infrared thermography (IRT) to detect intramammary infections (IMI) by mean of udder skin temperatures (UST). In Exp. 1, IRT pictures were taken immediately before and after milking at 46 and 56 d of lactation. No UST differences were detected by effect of IMI (healthy vs. IMI; P = 0.484). However, differences in UST were detected by breed (P = 0.003) and milking moment (P = 0.014) and turn (P < 0.001). In Exp. 2, 9 healthy ewes were used for studying the UST response to an E. coli O55:B5 endotoxin challenge during 3 d. Treatments were applied by udder half after milking. For all treatments, UST increased post-challenge, peaking at h 2 and decreasing thereafter without differences between treatments until h 4 (P = 0.556), but peaked at h 6 when both udder halves were treated (P < 0.001). Positive correlations between UST and ambient temperatures were detected (r = 0.60 to 0.88). In conclusion, despite the high sensitivity of the camera, the IRT was unable to discriminate between UST changes of the healthy and the IMI udders in dairy ewes.
