Behavioural responses of lambs to common painful husbandry procedures

Abstract

The behavioural responses of groups of 10 lambs were examined for 90 min following a range of commonly used husbandry procedures. The treatment groups were, control handling only (control); ear tagging (ET); tail docking by hot docking iron (HD); tail docking by rubber rings (RRT); castration by rubber rings (RRC); tail docking and castration by rubber rings (RRTRRC); HD plus Mulesing plus ET (HDMET); HD plus RRC plus Mulesing plus ET (HDRRCMET). ET produced no discernible changes in behavioural or postural indicators and HD showed small insignificant increases in active pain behaviours and abnormal postures. All treatments involving the use of tight rubber rings (RRT, RRC, RRTRRC, HDRRCMET) resulted in significant abnormal posture and active pain behaviour displays. HDMET produced few active pain behaviours but significantly increased the time spent in abnormal postures. An integrated score based upon the incidence of active pain behaviours and abnormal postures ranked the pain response of the treatments in the following order control=ET < HD < HDMET < RRT=HDRRCMET=RRC < RRTRRC.