Modern farms increasingly resemble factories in their makeup as they become more and more industrialised. The present day farmer spends less time performing menial tasks and more time behind the computer. In these circumstances good automatic monitoring systems are a must to ensure quality and continuity. One company that realises this has developed an automatic monitoring system for dairy cows using FLIR thermal imaging cameras.
“A big problem in present day dairy farming is a disease called Mastitis”, explains Ellinor Eineren, founder of Agricam. “Mastitis is a persistent inflammation in the cow’s udders. This potentially fatal mammary gland infection is the most common disease in dairy cattle. It can be treated very easily if diagnosed in an early stage. Usually the infected cow will simply be milked more often to ensure that there is little to no milk left in the udder for the bacteria that cause the infection to replicate in. This allows the animal’s natural defense system to get rid of the bacterial intruder before the Mastitis becomes clinical.”
Veterinarians all over the world use handheld thermal imaging cameras to detect inflammations in domesticated animals. From horses and cows to dogs and cats, thermal imaging cameras are becoming more and more accepted by animal health
professionals as a diagnostic tool for inflammation and other health issues. But in those cases there has to be a human operator present to manually record the images and to analyse the thermographic data.
This application story details how an automated system was created using FLIR A310 Thermal Imaging cameras to check the health of the diary herd as they are milked. Focusing on an increase in temperature at the cows udder altering the farmer to possible Mastitis and infected milk.
Download the success story to read full details below.