Effective pain recognition in cattle is fundamental to welfare, with validated assessment tools enabling stockpeople to identify and treat pain earlier.
Pain recognition training in cattle represents a high-impact, low-cost welfare intervention. The evidence that significant proportions of lame dairy cows receive no analgesic treatment reflects not malice but inadequate training in pain recognition combined with cost and prescribing barriers. Validated pain scales provide objective criteria that reduce subjectivity in welfare assessment and create defensible decision points for treatment. Farm assurance schemes that require documented pain assessment and treatment protocols for common conditions (lameness, respiratory disease, difficult calvings) create meaningful welfare improvement at scale. The welfare case for accessible, affordable NSAIDs for cattle is strong and regulatory frameworks enabling farmer-held analgesics would improve welfare outcomes.