Validated pain assessment tools developed for pigs are enabling more consistent analgesic use in farm veterinary practice, reducing unnecessary suffering during and after painful procedures.
Pain assessment tools solve the practical problem of identifying pain in animals that cannot communicate verbally. Farm staff able to reliably identify pain are both more likely to request veterinary treatment and to administer prescribed analgesics appropriately. Automatic video scoring systems would enable continuous monitoring without observer burden - a significant advance for large commercial operations where daily examination of every individual is impossible. The availability of validated tools removes the excuse that pain cannot be reliably detected, making undertreatment an ethical rather than just a practical failure.