Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are underused in cattle despite strong evidence that painful procedures cause significant suffering. Improving analgesic use is one of the most impactful achievable welfare improvements available in cattle farming.
The underuse of analgesia for painful cattle procedures is one of the most straightforward and tractable welfare improvements available to the industry. Castration and disbudding without anaesthesia or analgesia cause acute, prolonged pain that is clearly visible in animal behaviour and measurable through physiological indicators. The cost of pain relief is genuinely minimal - under one pound per animal for most procedures. The barriers are primarily habitual rather than economic or practical: traditional farming culture has normalised performing these procedures without analgesia. Farm assurance requirements for pain relief, combined with veterinary education and routine prescription of analgesics at procedure time, could rapidly change this practice across the industry.