Cough Sound Acoustics and Environmental Agents in Modern Swine Farming

Abstract. Cough sound analysis has been performed in this research for fattening swine res-piratory disease assessments. In particular, here are investigated the abiotic environmental factors predisposing animals to diseases. From cough sound recording during 4 fattening cycles it has been possible to evaluate the dynamics both of respiratory diseases and of cough sounds. The bioacoustic analysis investigated features like sound duration, amplitude and frequency and it has been combined with environmental recordings of temperature, relative humidity, gaseous ammonia and particulate matter concentrations. A serological screening has been also performed to evaluate the animal’s non specific immunity, useful to evaluate how farming conditions may affect animals welfare and health. The correlations of all parameters allowed estimation of the weight of every factor on the type of respiratory disease and estimation of which are useful acoustics parameters to be monitored for early diagnosis of respiratory haz-ards.