Roche Steven, Saraceni Julia, Zehr Laura, Renaud David
ACER Consulting, Guelph, ON N1G 5L3, Canada.
Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada.
Animals (Basel). 2025 Mar 19;15(6):877. doi: 10.3390/ani15060877.
Pain is an adverse experience causing distress and decreased production in dairy cattle. Pain, and its associated distress, is also undesirable from an animal welfare standpoint. Consumers consider animal welfare an important issue; therefore, ensuring proper pain management, and by extension good welfare, is important to maintain the social acceptability of dairy production. However, while some painful procedures and diseases can be avoided, some are inevitable. When this is the case, it is important to provide pain mitigation where possible. Various dairy quality assurance programs provide guidance on pain management practices for producers; however, guidelines differ across countries and jurisdictions. This narrative review covers common painful conditions and procedures, including disbudding and dehorning, castration, calving and dystocia, surgeries, disease conditions, and lameness. Further, this paper reviews evidence of the necessity and efficacy of pain management in these cases, current uptake of pain management, and quality assurance program standards for addressing pain in dairy cattle. Overall, there are clear advantages to providing pain mitigation for some conditions and procedures. For others, gaps still exist in understanding the best methods for pain control. Further attention should be paid to understanding and reducing the barriers to adoption of pain management strategies, as it is crucial to minimizing pain in animals and ensuring productive and sustainable dairy production.
疼痛是一种不良体验，会给奶牛带来痛苦并降低其生产性能。从动物福利的角度来看，疼痛及其相关的痛苦也是不可取的。消费者认为动物福利是一个重要问题；因此，确保适当的疼痛管理，进而确保良好的福利，对于维持乳制品生产的社会可接受性至关重要。然而，虽然一些痛苦的程序和疾病是可以避免的，但有些却是不可避免的。在这种情况下，尽可能减轻疼痛很重要。各种乳制品质量保证计划为生产者提供了疼痛管理实践的指导；然而，不同国家和司法管辖区的指导方针有所不同。这篇叙述性综述涵盖了常见的疼痛状况和程序，包括去蕾和去角、阉割、产犊和难产、手术、疾病状况以及跛行。此外，本文回顾了这些情况下疼痛管理的必要性和有效性的证据、当前疼痛管理的采用情况以及解决奶牛疼痛问题的质量保证计划标准。总体而言，为某些状况和程序减轻疼痛有明显的好处。对于其他情况，在理解最佳疼痛控制方法方面仍然存在差距。应进一步关注理解和减少采用疼痛管理策略的障碍，因为这对于最大限度减少动物疼痛以及确保乳制品生产的高效和可持续性至关重要。
