Why is this research important for Alberta ag?
Ram lambs are normally castrated for management reasons. Tail docking in sheep is done for health and hygiene reasons, to reduce the risk of flystrike and to decrease dag (manure build up) on a docked animal, thereby helping to avoid contact of the meat with bacteria at processing. All methods of castration and tail docking at any age cause pain.
Drugs effective for pain mitigation in food animals are available in Canada, but their use in lambs constitutes an extra-label drug use and these drugs must be prescribed and dispensed by a veterinarian. Pain mitigation can be achieved by the use of an injectable local anaesthetic and post-operative analgesia can be achieved when a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) is administered at the time of the procedure.
However, there are a number of challenges in applying anesthesia and analgesia to large numbers of animals in field situations, including administering local anesthesia to lambs in medium to large flocks, the difficulty of using current drug formulations, and the reluctance of veterinarians to dispense large volumes of drugs to farmers for extra-label use.
The LidoBand™ technology has the advantage over other pain administration routes in that the continual release provides pain mitigation for the entire banding process.
Pending the outcome of this research, this technology has the potential to become the standard of care during painful elastration procedures in Beef Cattle.
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