WHEN it comes to animal welfare, veterinarian Geoffry Fordyce has seen a dramatic shift in attitude amongst cattle producers over the past few decades.
“Everywhere I have been, I find producers are very switched on. However, when you explain the biology of their animals, many are quite surprised as they haven’t previously understood it, and are keen to learn more,” he said.
Dr Fordyce said many people learned techniques from watching each other, so it is not necessarily best practice.
Meanwhile, the change has also meant a push for pain relief for cattle when it comes to major procedures, such as dehorning, castrating and branding.
Although there have been studies into applying local anaesthetic to the animal, Dr Fordyce said there appeared to be more potential in directly applying pain killers, that is, topical analgesics.
“The trick is to have a product that can be applied by anyone. Having needles and syringes is not a good idea, as there are nerves etc, which is even tricky for vets, so it’s not that simple.”
Research is currently being conducted into topical analgesics, which could be applied directly onto the wound immediately after surgery, particularly with castration and dehorning, where the latter would be followed by a patch.
“One radical change we have achieved is in spaying, and we got rid of some pretty horrific practices before that.”
Dr Fordyce said the last 10-20 years has seen an increase in producer education when it comes to improving castration technique.
“We are always looking for better ways, particularly to control bleeding.”
One of the ways to achieve best practice is for producers to recognise they are surgeons and they may take a more balanced view on what they are doing, he said.
“When castrating, if they think they are surgeons they will more likely apply the principles of surgery.”
An area of increasing concern, however, is the use of castration rings often introduced by glib-speaking salespeople, Dr Fordyce said.
“Unless it is applied perfectly with perfect equipment, you will get a lot of pain and worse healing – more so than surgical castration.
“I have had instances where producers have called me up because a lot of calves have died after applying rings.”
Dr Fordyce said there was a misconception that rings were kinder because there was no blood, but that was completely incorrect.
Rings also made cattle more susceptible to infection so they needed to be vaccinated against tetanus.
