The use of infrared thermography for detecting digital dermatitis in dairy cattle: What is the best measure of temperature and foot location to use?

•Thermal imaging is a method of detecting lameness in dairy cattle.•Typically, only the maximum temperature is used in diagnosis, but we investigated other statistics in a study focussing on digital dermatitis.•Maximum temperature was the most informative, but 95th percentile (95PCT) and standard deviation (SD) also identified lameness.•SD and 95PCT may be useful where faecal contamination is present. There was also some evidence that systemic pyrexia is present in lame cows.