By sampling from the joint posterior density for the higher-order model parameters (and integrating out the effects of hoof and camera aspect) it was possible to generate predictions for hoof temperature as a function of ambient temperature. The 75th, 90th and 95th percentiles for these predictions were then used to define thresholds by which to identify healthy cattle, with a further refinement that the maximum threshold temperature was set equal to the mean rectal temperature for the animals (38.3°C) (Figure 4a ; Table 2 ). The specificity of a classification scheme based on these thresholds was investigated. For a threshold based on the 75th percentile, the predicted specificity was low, especially at ambient temperatures below 20°C (< 80% specificity, Figure 4b ). The specificity was improved by setting a threshold based on the 90th or 95th percentile with specificity > 90% predicted above temperatures of 15°C and 10°C respectively (Figure 4c, d) .