The association between automatically captured rumen temperature bolus temperatures and morbidity in group housed, pre-weaned dairy calves

Abstract

Group housing of dairy calves offers several advantages for dairy producers, yet calves housed in these systems have an increased risk of disease and it can be more challenging to detect a sick calf in a group. Fever is a widely used indicator of infectious diseases in dairy calves and often accompanies the two most common calf hood morbidities, diarrhea (DIA) and respiratory (RESP) disease. Indwelling rumen temperature bolus (RTB) systems are newly available for calves, but their utility in a field setting has not been formally evaluated. As a first step towards describing the utility (test characteristics) of this technology to detect morbidity, the objective of this study was to describe the relationship between automatically captured RTB temperatures and morbidity in group housed, pre-weaned dairy calves.