RETIRED doctor Peter Stephenson says pain relief is a first and foremost consideration in the management of his Angus based cattle herd.
Dr Stephenson currently runs about 65 breeders on his 85 hectare property Monkeybong at Delaney's Creek near Woodford.
He said he had been using the off-the-shelf pain relief product Tri-Solfen to treat castrated calves for several seasons.
"When we first started using Tri-Solfen I was immensely impressed," Dr Stephenson said.
"I think the original motivation came from my medical background in giving appropriate anesthesia.
"I can see calves treated with Tri-Solfen returned to their normal behaviour more quickly that untreated calves. And that continues for more than 24 hours.
Dr Stephenson said using pain relief was the right thing to do in terms of animal welfare and there was also a commercial benefit.
"Tri-Solfen is just magic," he said. "I would thoroughly recommend it."
The distinctive blue gel contains two local anaesthetics, lignocane and bupivivaine, plus adrenalin to stop bleeding and an antiseptic to prevent infection. It is applied using an applicator gun, which has recently been upgraded.
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