Advice to “Grin and Bear It” when it comes to painful conditions is now a thing of the past: and that applies to our cows as well. Treatments that relieve and manage pain for our cows may provide unexpected benefits.
Human medicine is giving us better understanding about pain, and this is now having positive spin-offs for pain relief in our animals. Most procedures on companion animals, even routine de-sexing operations, include effective pain relief. Now the Painful Husbandry Procedures welfare code released at the start of 2006 has brought discussion on pain relief for farm animals into the limelight. While the code deals specifically with pain relief for short-term husbandry procedures such as castration and disbudding/dehorning, there is also discussion about pain relief for conditions such as lameness.
We each feel pain in our own way. Some people have a high threshold, while others are bothered by seemingly quite minor problems; however we can all agree that chronic pain such as back strain, headache, or a tooth in need of repair is a constant drag. Our understanding of animal physiology, anatomy and behaviour tells us without doubt that animals also feel both acute and chronic pain, and they, like us, have different individual thresholds at which they show the signs of pain.
A recent study of lame cows at the University of Bristol identified that lameness can result in an ongoing period of hypersensitivity to pain. The researchers used a pressure device attached near the hock and noted how much pressure could be applied before the cow responded. What they found was that the cow responded to pressure on the affected leg at a much lower threshold than for the unaffected leg, and that difference was still evident four weeks after the lameness problem had been treated. An early result of associated work by the same group suggests that clinical mastitis may also result in ongoing hypersensitivity to pain.
Humans also become hypersensitive to pain and medical studies suggest that the barrage of pain signals as well as chemicals known as cytokines released by the inflamed tissue result in changes in the nerves leading away from the affected area. These changes take some time to repair, even after the original problem has been made good.
Early treatment of painful conditions including pain relieving drugs such as NSAIDs, a class of drugs that includes paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen for use in humans, and with a range of licensed products available for use in cattle, reduce the likelihood of these chronic changes and hypersensitivity occurring. Estimates of productivity losses due to lameness or mastitis are generally calculated from immediate losses resulting from treatment and suppressed appetite. More account needs to be taken of productivity losses from hypersensitivity to pain which may continue for some weeks and make the cow miserable. Agreed the additional treatment has additional cost, but this quickly pays for itself through an earlier return to full appetite, less weight loss and earlier return to full productivity.
