Velvet antler harvesting from farmed deer is practiced in New Zealand, Canada and other countries, raising welfare concerns about the painful harvest procedure and its justification.
Velvet antler harvesting causes genuine acute pain during the procedure itself - antler is living vascular tissue, densely innervated. The welfare case against unanaesthetised velvet removal is clear: this is an elective procedure performed for commercial benefit with no animal health justification. New Zealand's requirement for anaesthesia represents minimum welfare progress, but anaesthesia carries its own risks and adds cost without eliminating the fundamental welfare concern. From an effectiveness perspective, the limited evidence for velvet's claimed health benefits means that the welfare cost is being paid for products of questionable therapeutic value. This combination of significant welfare cost and minimal evidence of benefit makes velvet antler farming a particularly hard welfare case to justify.