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Behavioural response of dairy goat kids to cautery disbudding

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-03, 13:07 authored by Melissa HempsteadMelissa Hempstead, Joseph Waas, Mairi Stewart, Vanessa Cave, Mhairi Sutherland
Behaviours indicative of pain associated with cautery disbudding were assessed in 10 female Saanen goat kids. At 4 ± 2 days of age, kids were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: (1) disbudded with a cautery iron (CAUT, n = 5) and (2) sham handled (SHAM, n = 5). Animals were video recorded 12 h pre- and post-treatment in the home pen and one trained observer recorded the frequency of 11 behaviours: allogrooming, body shaking, ear biting, feeding, head butting, head rubbing, head scratching, head shaking, jumping, running and self-grooming. The change in frequency (post- minus pre-treatment) was compared between treatment groups. CAUT and SHAM kids performed the same behaviours before and after treatment, however the frequency of certain behaviours changed in response to disbudding. Behaviours (mean ± SE) that displayed the greatest difference (CAUT and SHAM respectively) were: head shaking (31.2 ± 3.11 vs. 17.5 ± 1.79; P = 0.027), head scratching (15.8 ± 5.90 vs. 2.2 ± 1.11; P = 0.044), head rubbing (4.2 ± 0.77 vs. 0.8 ± 0.27; P = 0.015) and body shaking (6.1 ± 0.36 vs. 8.8 ± 0.49; P = 0.022). Allogrooming, ear biting, feeding, head butting, jumping, running, and self-grooming did not vary significantly across treatments. These results show that changes in the frequency of certain behaviours may reflect pain associated with cautery disbudding in goat kids and could be used to assess pain mitigation strategies.

History

Rights statement

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language

  • English

Does this contain Māori information or data?

  • No

Publisher

Elsevier

Journal title

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

ISSN

0168-1591

Citation

Hempstead, M. N., Waas, J. R., Stewart, M., Cave, V. M., & Sutherland, M. A. (2017). Behavioural response of dairy goat kids to cautery disbudding. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 194, 42-47. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2017.04.001

Funder

Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment

Contract number

A20191

Job code

55374

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