Defining the Newborn Piglet’s Thermal Environment with an Effective Environmental Temperature

Abstract

An effective environmental temperature (EET) developed for newborn piglets describes the thermal environment by incorporating the mean radiant temperature, dry-bulb temperature, and air velocity near the newborn. The adequacy of the defined EET was analyzed by comparing with three published studies on newborn sensible heat loss. Results from the published studies indicate that the EET predicted between 87% and 98% of the variability in the data