Recognizing and treating pain in farm animals is a fundamental welfare requirement. Advances in pain assessment tools and analgesic use are improving welfare in agricultural settings globally.
Pain management in farm animals has historically lagged behind companion animal medicine due to cost, cultural factors, and the absence of mandatory requirements. The development of species-specific grimace scales — using facial expression coding to score pain — has provided objective tools enabling farm workers and veterinarians to recognize pain that stoic prey animals conceal. Regulatory trends are moving toward mandatory analgesia for castration and dehorning of cattle, with several countries and states now requiring it. Lameness recognition and treatment remains one of the largest unmet welfare needs in dairy farming — widespread lameness is tolerated as normal when it is in fact a major welfare crisis affecting individual cows. Systematic lameness scoring and prompt veterinary treatment represents one of the most impactful welfare improvements available to dairy farmers.