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90
Poster 18
Emily Tamminga presents Poster 18 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 1: Development, validation and automated measurements of indicators of animal welfare
VALIDATION OF THE THERMOCRON IBUTTON DATA LOGGER FOR
USE IN MARKET SWINE
E. Tamminga 1 , C. Dewey 2 , T. Crowe 3 , R. Bergeron 4 , T. Widowski 1
1 Department Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
2 Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada
3 Department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
4 Alfred Campus, University of Guelph, Alfred, Ontario, Canada
Thermal stress is a major cause of fatigue and mortality during transport. Therefore methods for
continuous measurement of core body temperature during transport studies are highly useful. The
objective of this study was to validate the Thermocron iButton temperature data logger (Dallas
Semiconductor, TX, USA) for use in market pigs.
Six market-weight swine (99.6±3.91 kg) in each of 4 repetitions were restrained and orally
administered two iButtons for each of three 24-hour periods when fasted and exposed to ambient
temperatures of 33 (High), 23 (Neutral) and 13°C (Low), over a twelve day trial in a Latin square
design. Pigs were kept in groups of three in raised deck pens in a self-contained, insulated
environmental chamber (3.7L x 5.5W x 2.9H m). During the experimental periods hourly readings
of rectal and tympanic temperature were taken on each individual. Forty-eight hours after the end of
the last temperature treatment the pigs were humanely slaughtered on site. Viscera were dissected in
order to recover the iButtons.
One hundred and thirty-nine data loggers were retrieved with readable data, 7 were not recovered
and 2 were found having been eructed by the animal. Slightly more than one third (37% ;51/139) of
the readable iButtons were found in the stomach, 21% (29/139) were in the colon, 13% (18/139)
were in the cecum and 28.06% (39/139) were in the manure, having been passed sometime between
60 hours and >7.1 days.
Readable data were downloaded from the data loggers using dedicated proprietary software into a
data spreadsheet. Preliminary descriptive statistics were performed using the MEANS procedure of
SAS. The mean temperature readings were 40.12°C±0.13, 39.67°C±0.09, 39.71°C±0.11 from the
iButtons, 39.78°C±0.05, 38.95°C±0.04, 38.47°C±0.09 from the rectal thermometers and
39.07°C±0.08, 38.33°C±0.06, 37.47°C±0.55 from the tympanic thermometers for the High, Neutral
and Low treatments, respectively. The effects of ambient temperature on temperature measurements
from data loggers, rectal and tympanic thermometers will be reported.
Contact information: Emily Tamminga or email etoth@uoguelph.ca
Complete address: Department Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario,
Canada
Species: Pig