Painful procedures and pain management is a common topic when animal welfare is concerned. Why are painful procedures used on livestock? Increased safety for animals and handlers, treatment of injury and disease, production of desired products, and identification are all reasons. Procedures such as castration, tail docking, clipping of needle teeth, and ear notching/tagging have all been recognized as painful procedures in the swine industry. Many people are now asking, “If these procedures are painful to the animals, why are we using them?” Well, the following paragraphs will explain four scientific studies on management of painful procedures on piglets. How do these procedures affect the piglets? Should we continue them?
Evidence shows that …show more content…
Pain is subjective and cannot be assessed directly and must be measured by indirect means. In this set of experiment, five day old piglets were either castrated or restrained in the same way but not castrated. Two experiments were conducted to assess piglet behavior after castration. In both experiments, the same person for all piglets to ensure consistent methods administered the castration. The castration or restraint method also did not change. In the first experiment, scan sampling was conducted every three minutes starting at 14:00 h on the day of castration and lasted for only three hours. Blood samples were taken from piglets before castration then every hour after for 4 hours total. In the second experiment, scan sampling was conducted on the day of castration and three days directly after. On day one, scan sampling was done in the morning, between 10:30-130h, and afternoon, between 14:00-16:00. On days two through four, scan sampling was only conducted in the afternoon between 14:00-16:00. Blood samples were taken before castration and at 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after. In both experiments, behavior was observed and recorded by the same-trained person. The blood samples were analyzed for pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-1β by ELISA. No differences were found between experiments. In experiment one, castrated piglets had less movement behavior and stayed closer to the
Evidence shows that …show more content…
Pain is subjective and cannot be assessed directly and must be measured by indirect means. In this set of experiment, five day old piglets were either castrated or restrained in the same way but not castrated. Two experiments were conducted to assess piglet behavior after castration. In both experiments, the same person for all piglets to ensure consistent methods administered the castration. The castration or restraint method also did not change. In the first experiment, scan sampling was conducted every three minutes starting at 14:00 h on the day of castration and lasted for only three hours. Blood samples were taken from piglets before castration then every hour after for 4 hours total. In the second experiment, scan sampling was conducted on the day of castration and three days directly after. On day one, scan sampling was done in the morning, between 10:30-130h, and afternoon, between 14:00-16:00. On days two through four, scan sampling was only conducted in the afternoon between 14:00-16:00. Blood samples were taken before castration and at 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after. In both experiments, behavior was observed and recorded by the same-trained person. The blood samples were analyzed for pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-1β by ELISA. No differences were found between experiments. In experiment one, castrated piglets had less movement behavior and stayed closer to the