Castration is routinely performed in livestock without anaesthesia in many countries, causing significant pain that welfare standards increasingly seek to address.
Castration causes acute pain and distress that can persist for days. Even when performed competently by trained personnel without anaesthesia, the procedure causes significant suffering measurable through pain behaviours, cortisol elevation and production losses. The case for pain relief is unambiguous from a welfare perspective. Routine castration without anaesthesia represents an area where practice substantially lags behind scientific evidence and public expectations for farm animal welfare.