Dehorning and disbudding of cattle causes significant pain, yet is routinely performed without adequate anaesthesia and analgesia in many farming systems.
Dehorning without pain management causes acute and prolonged suffering. Calves show pain indicators including ear flicking, head shaking, and reduced feeding for hours after the procedure. Adult cattle dehorned without anaesthesia show more severe and prolonged pain responses. The cost of appropriate analgesia — a nerve block and NSAID — is minimal compared to the welfare benefit. Yet surveys consistently show that a large proportion of disbudding is performed without any pain relief. Polled breeding represents the long-term welfare solution by eliminating the need for the procedure entirely, and genetics companies have developed polled high-performance bulls for all major dairy and beef breeds.