Short communication: Experimentally induced mastitis reduces weight shifting between the rear legs while standing in dairy cows
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The objectives of this study were to evaluate changes in weight shifting between legs while standing on a weighing platform in response to endotoxin-induced clinical mastitis, and to evaluate the effect of the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug flunixin meglumine on weight distribution between legs while standing in dairy cattle with endotoxin-induced clinical mastitis. Clinical mastitis was induced in 10 primiparous and 9 multiparous lactating dairy cows (days in milk=55 ± 12; mean ± standard deviation) by intramammary infusion of 100 µg of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the right rear quarter. Four hours later, 10 animals were randomly assigned to receive flunixin meglumine intravenously (2.2mg/kg of body weight; treated group) and 9 received an equivalent volume of sterile isotonic saline solution (control group). Body temperature was monitored rectally 3d before LPS infusion, immediately before LPS infusion, and 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 28 h after LPS infusion. The weight applied to each leg was recorded while cows were standing on a weighing platform on the day before the challenge and 7, 10, 13, 16, and 28 h after LPS infusion. Two measures of weight shifting between the rear legs were calculated for each recording session: the standard deviation of the weight applied to the legs over time and the frequency of steps. The LPS infusion resulted in a consistent case of clinical mastitis approximately 4h after the LPS infusion, as assessed by the presence of visible swelling and elevated rectal temperature in all cows. However, control animals had a higher temperature 7h after LPS infusion compared with treated animals (40.8 vs. 39.0°C; standard error of the difference=0.2). Overall, weight shifting between the rear legs was decreased 7h after the LPS infusion compared with baseline, and this decrease was not affected by treatment with flunixin meglumine. It is likely that weight shifting increases friction between the swollen udder and the legs, increasing the pain experienced by the cow. Thus, cows with endotoxin-induced mastitis avoided shifting weight, particularly at the times when the most severe signs of inflammation occurred. Further research is needed to assess the efficacy of flunixin meglumine in mitigating udder pain and the accuracy of behavioral measures such as weight shifting in assessing analgesia in cows with mastitis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".