Dehorning cattle without anesthesia causes severe pain. Pain management adoption is improving but incomplete, while polled genetics offer a long-term solution that eliminates the need for the procedure.
Cattle dehorning welfare illustrates the gap between available welfare improvement and actual practice. The evidence for severe pain during and after disbudding without analgesia is unambiguous - pain indicators remain elevated for hours to days after the procedure. Local anesthesia and NSAIDs are available, effective, and relatively inexpensive. Yet most US cattle are dehorned without effective pain management. The long-term solution is polled genetics that eliminate the need for dehorning entirely - a goal increasingly achievable through selective breeding and genomic tools. In the interim, pain management mandates represent a straightforward welfare improvement.