Brenda Batista Lemos Medeiros

Uso da termografia infravermelha na análise da termorregulação de cavalo em treinamento

Heat-regulation mechanisms, such as changes in peripheral blood flow, are activated by thermal stress to maintain body homeostasis. The infrared thermography enables to identify changes in blood flow and it has been valuable for recognizing stress in animals. This research aimed to evaluate the use of infrared thermography in the training horse thermoregulation. An Anglo-Arab horse was studied and exercised once a day. Infrared thermography images of horse´s armpit, croup, breast and groin and physiological parameters were taken before and after exercise and 0, 5 and 10 minutes after shower for eight days. The air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity were also registered. There were no differences between the surface temperature of croup and breast and the treatments, implying low participation in thermoregulation. However, the armpit and groin temperature increased after the exercise and decreased after shower, suggesting that vasomotor mechanisms were activated to heat exchange. Similar results were found for physiological parameters which show organism thermal responses for heat loss. It was concluded that infrared thermography allowed accuracy in determining the horse body surface temperature and it was possible to infer on thermoregulation.

Environmental enrichment as positive welfare of pigs: a review

The competitiveness of Brazilian pig production in the world market depends on their adaptation to global trends and technologies. Animal welfare as a requirement of international markets has generated discussion and questions about the current Brazilian pig farming. The intensive pig farming raises the most serious welfare concerns once it is surrounded by stress factors. Thus, environmental enrichment plays an important role as a simple and effective tool that can ensure the welfare of captive animal. Enrich an environment enhance the physical and psychological health by providing environmental stimuli necessary for encouraging the expression of natural inherent behaviors. Several stimuli which incite an animal s interest in a positive way can be used to enrich the housing systems, such as offering toys and substrate. This paper reviews the literature concerning environmental enrichment for pigs’ welfare and some methods to enrich the pig housing system.

Energy expenditure in vocalizations of pigs under stress

A suinocultura moderna enfrenta muitos desafios, dentre os quais o crescimento da produtividade, a melhoria da qualidade de carne, a reducao de danos ambientais e a reducao de custo de producao. Suinos gastam energia na vocalizacao, especialmente quando submetidos a determinado estresse. O desperdicio de energia pode aumentar o custo de producao e conduzir a um maior dano ambiental. O objetivo deste estudo foi estimar a energia gasta pelos leitoes sob o estresse da castracao e seu efeito sobre o ganho de peso dos animais. Dois grupos de dez animais cada foram castrados, sendo um grupo com anestesia local e outro sem anestesia. As vocalizacoes dos leitoes foram gravadas durante as diferentes fases do processo de castracao, sendo objeto de uma estimativa da quantidade de energia emitida durante cada vocalizacao. Posteriormente, esta energia foi associada com o ganho de peso dos animais. Nao houve diferenca no gasto total da energia em ambos os grupos, uma vez que a energia utilizada durante a aplicacao da anestesia foi semelhante a energia gasta durante a castracao dos animais sem anestesia. Tambem nao houve correlacao entre a energia gasta e o ganho de peso dos animais. Foi possivel estimar a quantidade de energia emitida atraves de vocalizacao. Esta energia gasta por leitoes com dor foi maior do que em outras situacoes de manejo (contencao, pesagem e soltura).

Data Mining Applied to Horse Thermal Comfort

Thermal comfort plays a critical role in body temperature regulation. Heat-regulation mechanisms, such as changes in peripheral blood flow, are activated by thermal stress to maintain body homeostasis and it can results in a fluctuation of skin temperature. Although thermal comfort of horse has been studied, its relation with surface temperature is rarely seen in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this study was to verify the potential of data mining techniques in knowledge discovery by associating surface temperature with thermal comfort of horses. The decision tree model presented 74.0% of accuracy and all attributes of dataset were considered relevant for the classification problem. The results revealed the potential of data mining techniques to equine thermal comfort classification problems

Different light intensity on the behavior and welfare of commercial broiler chicks.

In Brazil, the use of buildings with negative pressure system is increasing. The influence of different colors of side curtains on bird’s behavior is unknown. Depending on the curtain’s color its causes more or less luminosity inside the building, especially because the birds are photosensitivity. The luminosity has direct influence on the incidence of leg problems, and the UV rays may prevent it. This research aimed to evaluate the use of different curtain’s colors of broiler houses with negative pressure system with an emphasis in behavior and the incidence of leg problems. Three poultry farms located in Tiete / SP and Cerquilho / SP were studied, where treatment T1 was a negative pressure broiler house with black curtain, treatment T2 negative pressure broiler house with blue curtain and treatment T3 negative pressure broiler house with yellow curtain. Environmental data, animal behavior and the incidence of leg problems were monitored, during 3 flocks. Also, variable “Comfort TA” was created to evaluate the environmental conditions of the studied broiler houses. It was found a significant difference in bird’s behavior between treatments and some of them were related to luminosity. There was no relation between the incidence of leg problems with the light intensity and ultraviolet rays. The behavior of birds was influenced by the environmental variables.

Sound Levels in a Wean-to-Finish Facility in Brazil

Abstract: Wean-to-finish is a popular production facility in the United States and is increasing in Brazilian swine production. In wean-to-finish facilities, pigs are weaned directly into a finishing style building and remain there until slaughter. The study of sound levels is characterized by the vocalizations emitted by a group of animals. The sounds may indicate stress, discomfort, fear, or any other emotional disorder. This study aimed to evaluate the sound levels emitted by different group sizes (22, 24, 26, 28 and 30 animals per pen) and stocking densities (1.12, 1.02, 0.94, 0.88, 0.82 animals/m²) in a wean-to-finish swine production system. The experiment was divided into four periods: phase 1(13.40 kg initial weight to final weight 37.95 kg), phase 2 (37.96 initial weight to final weight 60.30 kg), phase 3 (60.31 initial weight to final weight 86.86 kg) and phase 4 (86.87 initial weight to final weight 125 kg). Decibelimeters with automatic scale of 30 to 130dB located at the center of each pen were used to record the sound levels every 30 seconds. Statistical analysis was done using ANOVA and Tukey’s test and were performed using SAEG (System for Genetic Analysis and Statistics). The results showed lowest sound levels for the smallest group size studied (22 animals). The highest mean sound level of 61.4 dB occurred in the 26 animals/pen group size, which was within the allowable limit of 85 dB specified in NR15 Brazilian norm. It can be concluded that main sound level emitted by pigs in a wean-to-finish facility is within the limits recommended by a Brazilian norm.