Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Each year, more than 15 million calves in the U.S. experience painful procedures such as castration. These procedures are necessary to reduce aggression, improve meat quality, and decrease risk of injury to other animals and caregivers. However, concern about the effects of pain on animal welfare has led to the development of guidelines requiring the use of pain relieving drugs. Unfortunately, U.S. farmers and veterinarians are currently limited in how to address this challenge, in part due to the lack of approved pain relieving drugs. Furthermore, heat stress is one of the major climate change-related effects on domestic animals and is detrimental to animal welfare and productivity. High environmental temperatures are associated with reductions in feed intake, milk yield, weight gain and fertility and an increase in cases of lameness. Even with optimum heat abatement, economic losses from heat stress by livestock industries in the U.S. is estimated at $1.7 billion annually.The research outlined in this proposal will directly address the priorities of the Welfare of Agricultural Animals Program (A1251) by using a rancher-developed, precision feed intake measuring system (PFIMS) to validate a Bovine Rate of Consumption Index (BROCI) as an objective measure of animal welfare. In delivering this objective, this proposal will assess the impact of (1) pain relief, (2) alternative methods of castration and (3) the impact of heat stress events on the welfare of beef calves. Our overarching assumption is that BROCI can be (1) accurately measured; (2) correlated with painful and heat stress events; (3) validated to support on-farm animal welfare assessment, and (4) used as evidence to support the development of heat reduction strategies and pain management protocols.These assumptions will be tested through three independent Specific Aims:Specific Aim 1 will optimize and validate BROCI and related feeding behaviors as an objective measure of acute pain and analgesic drug efficacy after surgical castration.Specific Aim 2 will compare the impact of surgical and non-surgical castration, novel anesthetic-impregnated tension bands, and a unique long-acting systemic pain-relief drug on BROCI.Specific Aim 3 will optimize and validate the BROCI to assess the impact of heat stress events on the welfare of beef calves.Taken together, this project will address the urgent need for innovative, automated and noninvasive methods to assess how cattle are coping with pain and thermal stress. Moreover, this proposal will examine state-of-the-art improvements for pain management after bovine castration.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The research outlined in this proposal will directly address the priorities of the Welfare of Agricultural Animals Program (A1251) by using a rancher-developed, precision feed intake measuring system (PFIMS) to validate a Bovine Rate of Consumption Index (BROCI) as an objective measure of animal welfare. The overarching goal of this proposal is to assess the effects of (1) analgesia, (2) alternative methods of castration and (3) the effects of thermal stress events on the welfare of beef calves. Taken together, this project will provide an innovative, automated and noninvasive method for outcome-based animal welfare assessment.Specific Aim 1 will use the PFIMS to optimize and validate a novel Bovine Rate of Consumption Index (BROCI) as an objective measure of acute pain and analgesic drug efficacy after surgical castration in beef calves. Specific Aim 2 will use the PFIMS to assess of the impact of two methods of castration (banding or surgical), with or without a novel long-acting analgesic (firocoxib) and/or lidocaine impregnated bands, on the BROCI and related feeding behaviors in beef calves. Specific Aim 3 will use the PFIMS to optimize and validate the BROCI and related feeding behaviors to assess the effects of thermal stress events on the welfare of beef calves.
Project Methods
Specific Aim 1 will use the PFIMS to optimize and validate a novel Bovine Rate of Consumption Index (BROCI) as an objective measure of acute pain and analgesic drug efficacy after surgical castration in beef calves. 40 British X Continental backgrounded commercial bull calves will be blocked by body weight and randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups using a 2 x 2 factorial study design (Castration Pain (Yes/No) vs. Meloxicam analgesia (Yes/No). Cattle will be fit with activity monitors on arrival and will be acclimated to the PFIMS for at least 21 days before study commencement. Experience with different group sizes has found that one system per 10 head is sufficient to accurately record feeding behaviors. Each feeding station will be outfitted with a motion activated video camera to record individual feeding events and ear numbers to further validate that the PFIMS is correctly assigning ear tag numbers to associated feeding behaviors. Calves will be randomly assigned to one of 4 treatment groups; Group A (CAST) (n=10) will receive a whey protein placebo at 1 mg/kg body weight prior to surgical castration with local anesthesia according to current standard industry practice. Calves assigned to Group B (MEL-CAST) (n=10) will receive meloxicam tablets at 1 mg/kg before surgical castration. Calves in Group C (SHAM) (n=10) will receive a whey protein placebo at 1 mg/kg body weight administered in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before simulated castration. Finally, calves assigned to Group D (MEL-SHAM) (n=10) will receive meloxicam tablets at 1 mg/kg administered in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before simulated castration. Lidocaine (5 ml/testicle) will be administered into the neck and base of the scrotum. This will assess any impact of the drug alone on feeding behaviors. After castration, calves will be monitored for 42 days using the PFIMS for total daily feed consumption, the number of individual feeding events, the duration of each feeding event, the total time spent feeding over 24 hours and the BROCI. These data will be analyzed in conjunction with the motion activated video footage of the associated feeding behavior to confirm the accuracy and precision of the system. Completion of Aim 1 will deliver an automated, noninvasive, objective measure of how an animal is coping after acute castration pain and advancing the assessment of animal welfare.Specific Aim 2 will use the PFIMS to assess of the impact of two methods of castration (banding or surgical), with or without a novel long-acting analgesic (firocoxib) and/or lidocaine impregnated bands, on the BROCI and related feeding behaviors in beef calves. 70 British X Continental backgrounded commercial bull calves will be blocked by body weight and randomly assigned to one of seven treatment groups using a 3 x 2 + 1 factorial study design. Calves will be randomly assigned to the following treatment groups; Group A (SURG) (n=10) calves will receive a whey protein placebo administered at 0.5 mg/kg body weight before surgical castration as previously described. Group B (BAND) (n=10): Calves will receive a whey protein placebo administered at 0.5 mg/kg body weight before band castration according to current standard industry practice. Group C (SURG-FIRO) (n=10): Calves will receive firocoxib tablets administered at 0.5 mg/kg in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before surgical castration. Group D (BAND-FIRO) (n=10): Calves will receive firocoxib tablets administered at 0.5 mg/kg in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before band castration as previously described. Group E (LIDO-BAND) (n=10): Calves will receive a whey protein placebo administered at 0.5 mg/kg body weight in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before band castration using a lidocaine-impregnated band according to current standard industry practice. Group F (LIDO-FIRO-BAND) (n=10): Calves will receive firocoxib tablets administered at 0.5 mg/kg in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before band castration using a lidocaine-impregnated band according to current standard industry practice. Group G (SHAM) (n=10): Calves will receive a whey protein placebo at 0.5 mg/kg body weight administered in a gelatin bolus capsule with a balling gun before simulated castration as previously described. After castration, the PFIMS output, activity monitoring recordings and the motion activated video footage of the associated feeding behaviors will be recorded over 42 days as previously described.Completion of Aim 2 will deliver an automated, noninvasive, objective measures of how an animal is coping after acute and chronic castration pain and will also evaluate firocoxib and lidocaine-impregnated bands as innovative improvements for pain management in cattle.Specific Aim 3 will use the PFIMS to optimize and validate the BROCI and related feeding behaviors to assess the effects of thermal stress events on the welfare of beef calves. Seventy purebred Simmental Angus bulls will be fit with activity monitors and will be acclimated to the PFIMS for at least 21 days before study commencement. This study will be conducted from May through August to assess the effects of a wide range of THI conditions and the effect of acclimatization on feeding behavior, rumination, activity and rumen temperature. The PFIMS will be expanded in the second year to accommodate the inclusion of shade as an intervention in one of the groups. The study will spread over three years to incorporate a wide range of accommodate seasonal and annual climate variations. Animals will be randomly assigned to treatment groups (shade vs. no shade) in the second and third summer of the project. The intervention will comprise a solid shade structure installed in one of the pens. Calves will be monitored for four months using the PFIMS, activity monitors and motion activated video footage of the associated feeding behavior as previously described. These data will be analyzed in conjunction with the meteorological data collected by the Kansas Mesonet at the Rocky Ford Weather Station. Completion of Aim 3 will deliver an automated, noninvasive, objective measure of how an animal is coping with thermal stress.