Thermal Profiles: Novel phenotypic measurements of animal growth and metabolic efficiency

The costs of production for high density protein and the impacts food production have on the environment are becoming increasingly important issues in animal agriculture. The objective of the present study was to investigate the use of novel thermal profiles including a Thermal Efficiency Index (TEI) on the ability to identify efficient animals in a fraction of the time and at a significantly lower cost of conventional feed station and performance technology. Three hundred and fourty four high performance Duroc sires from a genetic nucleus herd were used in the study. The animals were monitored for feed consumption and growth performance using conventional feed station technology for a 72 day period. Animals were monitored in these stations between approximately 50 kg and 130 kg live body weight. An infrared thermal scan was performed on the animals at the end of the performance test by collecting automated dorsal thermal images and using these biometrics to measure both bio-surveillance values and a thermal phenotypic profile including the TEI (mean dorsal temperature /body weight ^0.75). The thermal profile values were significantly correlated (r = 0.40, P < 0.0001) with a current industry best practice for performance in Residual Intake and Gain (RIG). The data from the current study suggest these rapid, real time, cost effective values for TEI constitute a useful precision farming tool for the animal industries to reduce the cost of production and green house gas (GHG) impact for high density protein production.