Infrared thermography for animal health and welfare monitoring: Where to from here?

Sensing technologies capable of automated, non-invasive detection of stress and disease are required for practical 'farmer friendly' assessments of animal health and welfare on-farm. For example, as the average dairy herd size increases, so does the reliance on automated monitoring systems to replace the human interaction with individual animals. Increased capability such as early disease detection would be beneficial in terms of economic cost as well as animal welfare. There is also an increasing pressure to provide 'welfare friendly'products in the animal-based agricultural industries.