Dehorning is performed on millions of cattle annually to reduce injury risk, but is typically done without anesthesia or pain relief despite causing significant acute and chronic pain.
Dehorning without pain relief causes unnecessary suffering that is preventable through available interventions. Calves dehorned without anesthesia show elevated cortisol, increased heart rate, reduced feeding behavior, and pain-associated postures for hours after the procedure. The solutions are clear: use local anesthesia and post-procedure analgesia when dehorning is necessary, or transition to polled genetics to eliminate the need entirely. The slow adoption of pain management in routine cattle procedures reflects the normalization of animal pain in agricultural practice rather than any technical barrier.