PAIN relief for essential surgical animal husbandry practices will be mandated to enhance not only Australia's animal welfare reputation but also for its demonstrated productivity gains.
That's according to Consolidated Pastoral Company chief executive officer Troy Setter who said his company had been using pain relief for all surgical procedures across the company's 380,000 head northern Australian cattle herd in recent years.
"Pain relief in animal production is a really important tool and responsibility," Mr Setter said.
"We all want our animals to be happy, content and productive as possible."
He said the Australian developed product Tri-Solfen manufactured by Bayer was being used across the CPC operation for dehorning, castration and other minor surgical procedures.
Tri-Solfen is a blue gel applied using an applicator gun. It contained two local anaesthetics, lignocane and bupivivaine, plus adrenalin to stop bleeding and an antiseptic to prevent infection.
Moving forward, if it's not already legislated it will be in the future.
- Troy Setter, CPC
Mr Setter said there was already legislation in a number of jurisdictions in Australia mandating pain relief for animals over six months of age.
"Moving forward, if it's not already legislated it will be in the future," he said.
CPC is Australia's largest privately owned cattle operation with 13 cattle stations covering some 4.5 million hectares of land.
Mr Setter was also recently elected as the chairman of LiveCorp, a corporation that works to improve performance in animal health and welfare, supply chain efficiency and market access for the live export industry.