Cuttance E L, Mason W A, McDermott J, Laven R A, Ruddy B P, Taberner A J, McKeage J W, Turner S A
EpiVets Limited, Te Awamutu, New Zealand.
VetEnt, Te Awamutu, New Zealand.
J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2024 Jul-Sep;27(3):465-476. doi: 10.1080/10888705.2022.2117553. Epub 2022 Sep 1.
Three options for anesthetizing the skin around the horn bud of dairy goat kids were explored. Forty-five <10-day-old Saanen goat kids from were randomly split into five treatment groups (topical anesthetic cream (TA), vapocoolant spray (VS), local anesthetic applied by jet injector (JI), control - no treatment but painful stimulus applied (C), sham - no treatment and touching sites with a finger. The painful stimulus was multiple needle pricks on the skin around the horn bud. The outcome variables measured were heart rate movement, and vocalization during treatment application and administration of a painful stimulus around the horn bud. Heart rates were greater during application of a VS compared to TA.Neither the TA nor the VS appeared to have any effect on the response to the painful stimulus. Kids in the JI group had a 96% reduced odds of expressing a marked pain response in comparison to TA group and an 83% reduction in the odds of a high movement grade during a painful procedure in comparison to the combined results of the other three treatment groups.
