MANHATTAN, Kan. — Most beef producers agree their animals feel pain, but often they don’t have the means to control it.
“It is really encouraging from an animal welfare perspective,” said Ed Pajor of the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine.
“There are opportunities there where producers are willing to accept there are painful procedures and there are things we can be doing to address that.”
Three major Canadian projects are looking at pain management with $1 million in support from the beef sector.
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“We want to understand how pain in the animal can be managed,” Pajor said at the International Symposium on Beef Cattle Welfare held earlier this year in Manhattan, Kansas.
The projects are looking at pain associated with castration and dystocia as well as calf vigour and benchmarking of calf management practices.
The Canadian code of practice for the humane handling of beef recommends using pain control when dehorning calves after bud attachment and when castrating after nine months of age.
As well, pain control must be used in two years time when castrating bulls after six months. The next code will probably push the age back even younger.
The dairy code of practice says producers must mitigate pain at one day of age.
The studies are in collaboration with scientists at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Lethbridge.
The first is an assessment of acute pain in castration to identify which age and method causes less pain and distress in beef calves.
Meloxicam is legal in Canada and can be used before castration. The research is also considering using meloxicam and lidocaine together for pain mitigation after surgical castration of beef calves.
The research is working with three groups at one week, two months and four months of age. Band and surgical procedures are each done at those ages to measure stress and pain.
No major differences have been found among those castrated at one week and two months, but there was noticeable pain in the older animals.
Another project is looking at wound healing after castration and how healing can be improved to prevent infection.
Pain management associated with assisted calvings is also being studied to assess how quickly calves recover. A difficult birth may result in a calf having difficulty getting up and moving, so the goal is to find better management practices that producers can use to get them going sooner.
Newborn calf vigour is also being assessed.
It has been found that a strong suckle reflex is an indicator of vigour in calves. Calves with a strong reflex are more likely to get up within four hours and consume colostrum compared to those with a weak suckle reflex.
“Calving ease had very little impact on that suckle reflex and how successful they were,” Pajor said.
Health problems could appear later if calves do not consume enough colostrum within that four hour window because they did not get enough maternal antibodies.
Scientists in the United States are also researching pain management but have fewer drugs at their disposal.
“The reality is we only have a few tools,” said Mike Kleinhenz of Iowa State University.
“We only have a handful of things we can use legally and extra label, and we have to learn to use those tools to have a safe food supply.”
No new analgesics for cattle have been approved, unlike in Canada and the European Union, where meloxicam is allowed for cattle.
In the U.S., these products require a veterinarian to allow extra label use, and the product has to be a drug that is already on the market.
Animal identity and treatment records must be maintained for at least two years from when the animal leaves the farm so appropriate drug withdrawals can be observed.
Research has found that non-steroidal anti-inflammatories can reduce stress among weaned calves travelling long distances.
Researchers have also looked at other NSAID products.
Firocoxib is an oral product allowed for horses and dogs. It was tested on dehorned calves and did not work as well as meloxicam.
Carprofen is labelled in the EU and is allowed for small animals in the U.S. It seemed to decrease pain after dehorning, but there was no noticeable reduction in the stress hormone cortisol.
Flunixin meglumine is a potent pour-on product with anti-inflammatory properties. It is available in the EU for treatment of fever and endotoxemia in cattle. It is easy and effective to use and lasts for one and a half to four hours. However, Kleinhenz said 50 percent of the drug wasn’t absorbed into the skin.
