Pain Relief - Marking & Mulesing.

When we go to the dentist, we expect a bit of pain relief prior to the tooth pulling. Similarly, it’s becoming more and more common, and expected, that our lambs and calves get pain relief at marking, mulesing and dehorning. Both the sheep and cattle industries have committed to using pain relief for painful routine management procedures on 100% of farms in coming years.

With the plethora of choices on the market, it is important to understand how they work and which one to choose in your enterprise.

There are different types of pain relief.

Back to the dentist chair – the numbing is provided by a local anaesthetic which the dental work is being done, but chances are you will also chase an analgesic afterwards when the local anaesthetic starts to wear off and the post-trauma ache sets in.  The same options are available to lambs and calves.

The local anaesthetic blocks ‘nociception’ and numbs the area during the procedure and for a short period afterwards. The analgesic, with anti-inflammatory properties, acts systemically for a longer period of time and diminishes the ‘sensitisation’ part of the pain response.

Tri-Solfen® or Numnuts® are the local anaesthetic products and Buccalgesic®/Butec® or Metacam®/Meloxicam are the analgesic products.

Note that Numnuts is only registered for use in lambs, the others are registered for both lambs and calves.

There have since been many studies done that show that a combination of pain relief options is better than just one. Just like the dentist - we get the best pain relief using an immediate (short acting) local anaesthetic, plus a longer acting analgesic.

So, if you’d like to do the absolute gold standard best by your animals, we recommend Numnuts or Trisolfen PLUS Metacam or Buccalgesic/Butec. What happy little lambs or calves you’d have! 

AHN Consulting can give you the best advice for your enterprise and supply you with pain relief products at a competitive price. If you’re planning ahead for marking, please get in touch, we can discuss the options and give you a quote!

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This information is the intellectual property of Animal Health & Nutrition Pty Ltd. No part of this work may otherwise be reproduced or copied in any form without the written permission of Animal Health & Nutrition Pty Ltd. The information is intended to be general in nature and you should seek information tailored to your situation and enterprise before making decisions.