{
 "dataset": "vital-signs",
 "title": "Resting reference ranges by species",
 "description": "Rectal temperature, heart rate and respiratory rate for healthy adult animals at rest, as used in standard veterinary reference works.",
 "generated": "2026-09-17",
 "count": 8,
 "publisher": {
  "name": "Galen",
  "url": "https://galen.vet/",
  "documentation": "https://galen.vet/api/",
  "contact": "hello@galen.vet",
  "byline": {
   "name": "Galen editorial",
   "url": "https://galen.vet/about/",
   "type": "Organization",
   "note": "An organisation byline, deliberately, and not a named expert. Nobody on this masthead is a practising clinician; a named authority who does not exist would be a lie in machine-readable form. Where a veterinarian reviews a page, the name, qualification and date are attached to that page rather than to the site."
  }
 },
 "licence": {
  "id": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "name": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International",
  "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "attribution": "Galen (https://galen.vet)",
  "covers": "The compilation: the article index, the reference tables as structured here, the source registry and every derived field. Use it commercially, modify it, redistribute it; credit Galen with a link. The underlying standards, guidelines and reference works belong to the bodies that publish them and are cited row by row."
 },
 "scope_limits": {
  "no_dosing": "Galen publishes no doses, dose rates, dose intervals or dose calculations, for any species or any product. The figure that applies is on the approved label of the product in front of you, interpreted by the veterinarian who has examined the animal.",
  "no_diagnosis": "Nothing here diagnoses. A sign is not a disease and a list of signs is not a differential. What is published is what a measurement or a label phrase MEANS, so that a conversation with a veterinarian starts from the right place.",
  "no_products": "No product is named and none is recommended. Which product is appropriate is a clinical decision and, in most jurisdictions, a prescribing one.",
  "no_clearance": "An absent row is never a statement of safety. These tables list what they list; the space around them is unexamined, not cleared.",
  "emergency": "If an animal has swallowed something, is collapsed, is struggling to breathe, is bloated and retching unproductively, or is deteriorating after a bite or sting, the answer is a veterinarian or an animal poison centre immediately — not a reference page and not an agent.",
  "jurisdiction": "Veterinary medicines law is national. Where a figure or a rule belongs to one regime it is named as such; where a page describes a pattern common to several, it says so. Nothing here should be read as the law of a country it does not name."
 },
 "corrections": {
  "how": "Email hello@galen.vet with the URL and the source that contradicts it.",
  "policy": "A correction to a figure is made in the source registry or the reference data and reaches every surface — page, markdown twin, JSON and MCP — on the next build, because there is only one copy of it."
 },
 "caveat": "A reference range describes a POPULATION and has soft edges. An animal slightly outside a published band is not thereby unwell, and one comfortably inside it can be seriously ill. The individual animal's own resting baseline is the more useful comparison. Young stock sit at or above the top of every band on all three measures, so an adult range applied to a calf, lamb, puppy or kitten produces false alarms. Published intervals differ modestly between reference works, and a reading is only comparable with another taken at rest under similar conditions. A value outside the range means something has changed and is worth investigating; it is not a diagnosis.",
 "source_page": "https://galen.vet/journal/normal-temperature-pulse-respiration-animals/",
 "sources": [
  {
   "key": "merckTemps",
   "title": "Normal rectal temperature ranges",
   "publisher": "MSD/Merck Veterinary Manual",
   "url": "https://www.merckvetmanual.com/special-subjects/reference-guides/normal-rectal-temperature-ranges"
  },
  {
   "key": "merckManual",
   "title": "The Merck Veterinary Manual",
   "publisher": "MSD/Merck Veterinary Manual",
   "url": "https://www.merckvetmanual.com/"
  },
  {
   "key": "avmaPetCare",
   "title": "Pet care resources for owners",
   "publisher": "American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)",
   "url": "https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/petcare"
  },
  {
   "key": "woahCode",
   "title": "Terrestrial Animal Health Code",
   "publisher": "World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)",
   "url": "https://www.woah.org/en/what-we-do/standards/codes-and-manuals/terrestrial-code-online-access/"
  },
  {
   "key": "faoAnimalProduction",
   "title": "Animal production and health",
   "publisher": "Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)",
   "url": "https://www.fao.org/animal-production/en/"
  }
 ],
 "units": {
  "temperature_c": "degrees Celsius, rectal, at rest",
  "heart_rate_bpm": "beats per minute, at rest",
  "respiratory_rate_bpm": "breaths per minute, at rest"
 },
 "field_notes": {
  "ranges": "Each numeric field is a two-element [low, high] array. `printed` carries the same range exactly as the article renders it, which is what the build gate compares — if these two ever disagree, the build fails rather than the site drifting.",
  "adults_only": "Adults. Young stock sit at or above the top of every band on all three measures, and applying an adult range to a calf, lamb, piglet, puppy or kitten produces false alarms. No paediatric ranges are published here because they are not on the page.",
  "birds": "Chicken temperature is three to four degrees above every mammal in the table. That is normal for a bird and is not a fever — the single most common misreading of this table.",
  "not_a_threshold": "A value outside a range means something has changed and is worth investigating. It is not a diagnosis, and a value inside the range is not a clean bill of health."
 },
 "data": [
  {
   "species": "Cattle, adult",
   "temperature_c": [
    38,
    39
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    48,
    84
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    15,
    35
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "38.0–39.0",
    "heart_rate": "48–84",
    "respiratory_rate": "15–35"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Sheep",
   "temperature_c": [
    38.5,
    39.5
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    60,
    120
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    16,
    34
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "38.5–39.5",
    "heart_rate": "60–120",
    "respiratory_rate": "16–34"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Goat",
   "temperature_c": [
    38.5,
    39.7
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    70,
    110
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    15,
    30
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "38.5–39.7",
    "heart_rate": "70–110",
    "respiratory_rate": "15–30"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Horse, adult",
   "temperature_c": [
    37.2,
    38.3
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    28,
    44
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    8,
    16
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "37.2–38.3",
    "heart_rate": "28–44",
    "respiratory_rate": "8–16"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Pig, adult",
   "temperature_c": [
    38,
    39.5
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    70,
    120
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    8,
    18
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "38.0–39.5",
    "heart_rate": "70–120",
    "respiratory_rate": "8–18"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Dog",
   "temperature_c": [
    37.5,
    39.2
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    60,
    140
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    10,
    30
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "37.5–39.2",
    "heart_rate": "60–140",
    "respiratory_rate": "10–30"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Cat",
   "temperature_c": [
    38,
    39.2
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    140,
    220
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    20,
    30
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "38.0–39.2",
    "heart_rate": "140–220",
    "respiratory_rate": "20–30"
   }
  },
  {
   "species": "Chicken",
   "temperature_c": [
    40.5,
    42
   ],
   "heart_rate_bpm": [
    250,
    300
   ],
   "respiratory_rate_bpm": [
    15,
    30
   ],
   "printed": {
    "temperature": "40.5–42.0",
    "heart_rate": "250–300",
    "respiratory_rate": "15–30"
   }
  }
 ],
 "related": {
  "articles": "https://galen.vet/api/v1/articles.json",
  "heat_stress": "https://galen.vet/api/v1/heat-stress.json",
  "documentation": "https://galen.vet/api/"
 }
}