Volume: 56 Issue: 2
Year: 2025, Page: 285-291, Doi: https://doi.org/10.51966/jvas.2025.56.2.285-291
Received: Dec. 12, 2024 Accepted: Feb. 10, 2025 Published: June 30, 2025
Understanding the variations of biomarkers in relation to weather parameters and biological indicators of thermal stress (TS) appears important to minimize the harmful consequences of climatic adversities on health and productivity of the animals. Hence, diurnal pattern of breathing rate (BR) among eight postpartum dairy cows were compared across two seasons of extreme THI variations. Association of BR with daily recording of weather parameters and weekly assessments of stress associated serum factors were analyzed to find out the usefulness of this basic biomarker in determining the extent of TS suffered by the animal. Highly significant (p<0.01) variations of BR were noticed between the two seasons, months and even across each time of daily recording. The BR was also found to be influenced by weather parameters causative of TS such as THI, AT and RH and there was highly significant (p<0.01) association with TS associated serum factors such as HSP 70 and MDA. However, cortisol level was found to have no significant association with BR indicating the difference of its regulatory mechanism. To conclude, BR can be used as an easily measurable indicator of TS in dairy cows as it reflects the thermo-regulatory effort upon exposure to TS factors
Keywords: Breathing rate, HSP 70, MDA, Thermal stress, Weather
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© 2025 Ibraheem Kutty. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
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Kutty C.I. 2024. Comparison of breathing rate in cross bred dairy cows across two seasons of highest and
lowest temperature-humidity index as an indicator of thermal stress under the humid tropical climate
J. Vet. Anim. Sci. 56 (2):285-291