Training farmers and stockpeople to recognise pain in livestock is one of the most impactful welfare interventions available, enabling earlier treatment and better welfare outcomes.
Pain recognition is the gateway to pain relief in animal populations that cannot communicate distress verbally. The development of validated, easy-to-use pain assessment tools for livestock species — facial action coding systems, grimace scales, composite measures — has transformed what is possible in farm pain management. But the tools only deliver welfare benefit if the people working with animals daily are trained to use them. Pain recognition training for stockpeople has demonstrable welfare outcomes: trained farmers identify lame cows at earlier stages, treat more promptly, and achieve better recovery. The welfare investment in training is recovered multiple times over in better animal outcomes.