Author
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Brown-Brandl, Tami |
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Submitted to: Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 9/30/2015 Publication Date: 10/26/2015 Citation: Brown-Brandl, T.M. 2015. Techniques for measuring animal physiological and behavioral responses with respect to the environment. In: Ni, J., T. Lim and C. Wang, editors. Proceedings of International Symposium on Animal Environment and Welfare, October 23-26, 2015, Rongchang, Chongqing, China. p. 223-232. Interpretive Summary: Both hot and cold environments can cause animal well-being issues. Because animals are housed either outside or in buildings with limited cooling options, a better understanding of an animal’s response to different temperatures is needed. This paper discusses different methods on monitoring the animal’s response to these different conditions. Technical Abstract: Environmental effects cause animal production inefficiencies and animal well-being issues. Thus, many experiments have been designed to understand thermal stress and to test different means to relieve it. There are multiple physiological responses and behavior/activities that can be measured to discern the level of response to environmental stressors. Additionally, choices of instrumentation and interpretation of the responses are dependent on an understanding the heat balance of a homeotherm. This paper investigates the current understanding of heat balance concepts for livestock, and reviews various methods of measuring common physiological measurements (body temperature, respiration rate, surface temperatures) are included as well as behavioral and activity level measurement methods. |
