Dehorning and disbudding of cattle are among the most common painful procedures in livestock farming. Evidence-based pain management practices can substantially reduce the welfare cost of these necessary husbandry procedures.
Dehorning is performed primarily to reduce injury risk among cattle in groups — a welfare motivation that nonetheless involves causing pain to achieve. The welfare logic is sound when pain is adequately managed; it becomes indefensible when procedures are performed without analgesia, as they still commonly are in many production systems. Local anaesthetic takes minutes to administer and dramatically reduces acute pain; NSAIDs extend post-operative pain control. The gap between what is known about pain management and what is practiced on farms reflects a combination of cost, habit, and insufficient regulatory pressure — all of which are changeable.