Dehorning is one of the most common procedures in cattle farming, causing acute and chronic pain. Pain management and polled genetics offer welfare improvements.
Cattle dehorning is widely practiced to reduce injury risk to other cattle and handlers, but it causes significant acute pain without analgesia. Calves disbudded without local anesthesia show pain behaviors — head shaking, increased vocalizations, reduced feeding — for days afterward. Meloxicam given before disbudding significantly reduces these pain indicators. Polled genetics — breeding hornless cattle — offers a permanent solution that eliminates the welfare harm of dehorning entirely. Transition to polled cattle is gaining momentum and represents the most welfare-positive long-term approach.