Painful procedures like disbudding and castration can be a big stressor for calves and stress can lead to sick calves.

The use of both local anaesthetic and pain relief (via a non–steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, NSAID) is considered the gold standard when disbudding and castrating calves to minimise the effects of these painful procedures for good welfare.

Pain relief injections are getting more popular in their use on farms and are being used as supportive therapy for calves with scour and in cows after a difficult calving. Research has shown that the younger you carry out these procedures the better it is for the animals.

“The only caveat to that is if calves are sick or are stressed out in other ways like weaning or mixing together,” Stephen Griffith, a vet at the local Parklands vet practice told the farmers attending the farm walk on Andrew McMenamin’s farm in Castlefinn last week.

He advised that disbudding should take place once horn buds become visible with the timing often depending on breed type.

Traditional breeds will grow horn buds quicker than continental breeds. Hot iron disbudding is used to remove horn buds with a number of gas-powered tools on the market. The calf’s head should be restrained to prevent injury with Stephen advising on the use of a calf dehorning crate to avoid injury to both the calf and operator.

Local anaesthetic is required to be administered by law in a calf aged over two weeks but best practice is to use anaesthetic and a pain killer in any age of calves.

“The best location to anaesthetise the nerve is halfway between the base of the ear and the corner of the eye.

“Feel for a bony ridge in this area because the nerve runs under that ridge” Stephen said. Dehorning can take place up to two months of age. After that dehorning must be carried out under veterinary supervision.

“We have had a few enquiries about using sedation on calves for dehorning and it works quite well where there is a large batch of calves for disbudding” Stephen said.

Castration

Calves can be castrated with a burdizzo under six months of age or with a rubber ring before eight days of age. Outside of these age bands veterinary supervision is required by law.

Similar to disbudding the younger an animal is castrated the better and pain relief is recommended for any age of calf. If a rubber band is used for castration animals should be monitored for any signs of infection or flystrike afterwards.

If using a burdizzo, each spermatic cord must be crushed twice (the second crush below the first) for 10 seconds along the neck of the scrotum. Tetanus injections are recommended to minimise the risk of disease after castration.