Farm animals routinely undergo painful procedures without adequate pain management, but evidence-based analgesia is increasingly available and accessible for common interventions.
Pain management in farm animals during and after veterinary procedures represents one of the most achievable near-term welfare improvements in agriculture. The medications exist, are affordable, and the evidence for their effectiveness is clear. The barriers are primarily cultural and economic - habits formed when analgesics were unavailable or unaffordable persist even when better options are accessible. Veterinary education and farmer training that normalises analgesic use, combined with certification scheme requirements that mandate it, are the most effective mechanisms for change. Every farm animal that undergoes a painful procedure without adequate pain management suffers avoidably.