Using infrared thermography to detect teat tissue changes after machine milking in dairy cows

Mastitis is among the costliest diseases affecting dairy cows, partly due to its permanent reduction of the quantity and qual­ity of milk produced. Most mastitis cases involve pathogenic organisms entering the cow’s mammary gland through the teat canal. The teat canal has natural defenses against these patho­gens that can be disrupted during milk harvesting. Some of these disruptions of the teat tissue morphology, also known as short-term changes (STCs), can be diagnosed through visual in­spection and palpation. Infrared thermography (IRT) has previ­ously been shown to produce precise and consistent measure­ments of skin temperatures on cows’ hind teats. Our primary objective was to determine if IRT could distinguish between presence and absence of STCs to eventually create an automat­ed monitoring system. Our secondary objective was to describe the variability in the teat skin surface temperatures (SSTs) be­fore and after machine milking.