Bioacoustics features as a tool for early diagnosis of pneumonia in riverine buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) calves

The present study was conducted to identify specific acoustic features which could be used as possible indicators for early diagnosis of pneumonia in buffalo calves. In pneumonia, change in elasticity and resonance of vocal sound producing organs occur which eventually affects the vocal signature of calves. Twenty Murrah buffalo calves’ voice was recorded during both healthy and pneumonia infected stage where pneumonia was confirmed by lung X-RAY radiography. From the recorded vocal sound, acoustic features viz. call duration (sec.), call interval (sec.), frequency (Hz), bandwidth (Hz) and peak amplitude (P) with their sub variants were extracted with the help of PRAAT 3.2.36 software. Out of these, call duration (sec.) (0.879± 0.29 v/s 0.689± 0.24), call interval (sec.) (0.288±0.059 v/s 0.107±0.047) and peak amplitude (P) (start (0.750 ± 0.118 v/s 0.435 ± 0.113), end (0.102 ± 0.045 v/s 0.508 ± 0.268) and maximum (0.938 ± 0.210 v/s 0.684 ± 0.480)) were found significantly (p<0.05) different between two groups. Rest acoustic features did not differ statistically between two groups. This study indicates that it is possible to discriminate pneumonia voice from normal/healthy voice by acoustic analysis and farmers can acquire an early warning of pneumonia infections in calves through this non-invasive method.