The Controversy on Fish Pain: A Veterinarian’s Perspective
Fish welfare is still a relatively new field. As such, regulations and protocols to ensure fish welfare are currently limited and vary considerably in different jurisdictions. This is in part because of the ongoing controversy as to whether or not fish feel pain. This controversy has persisted for several years, yet veterinarians have been mostly […]
Evaluation of a pressure sensitive walkway for objective gait analysis in normal and arthritic domestic ducks (Cairina moschata domestica)
Objective gait evaluation with a pressure sensitive walkway (PSW) has been used to assess welfare of poultry and to assess lameness and response to therapy in domestic mammals. Objective gait analysis of birds with lameness due to pododermatitis, osteoarthritis, and other common diseases could provide non-biased assessment and therapeutic monitoring for zoo clinicians. The objective […]
Effects of local anesthetic and a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug on pain responses of dairy calves to hot-iron dehorning
This study examined the effects of a nonsteroidal antiinfiammatory agent (NSAID) on physiologieal responses of calves immediately after hot-iron dehorning (DH) and during the time that local anesthetic (LA) wears off (2 to 3 h) after this procedure. Forty-six calves (33 ± 0.3 d of age) were randomly assigned to G treatments: hot-iron DH versus […]
Evaluation of intramuscular ketoprofen and butorphanol as analgesics in chain dogfish (Scyliorhinus retifer)
Abstract 10.1002/zoo.20105.abs The mediation of nociception with analgesic medications has not been well documented in elasmobranchs. The purpose of this study was to determine effective analgesic doses of the opioid agonist-antagonist, butorphanol, and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, ketoprofen, in an elasmobranch. This was evaluated by repetitively assessing minimum anesthetic concentrations of the immersion anesthetic, tricaine […]
Potential behavioural indicators of post-operative pain in male laboratory rabbits following abdominal surgery
This study aimed to identify behaviours that could be used to assess post-operative pain and analgesic efficacy in male rabbits. In consideration of the ‘Three Rs’, behavioural data were collected on seven male New Zealand White rabbits in an ethically approved experiment requiring abdominal implantation of a telemetric device for purposes other than behavioural assessment. […]
Assessing pain in animals putting research into practice
Our ability to assess pain in animals in clinical situations is slowly developing, but remains very limited. In order to develop appropriate pain scoring schemes, numerous practical problems need to be overcome. In addition, we need to appraise realistically our current poor state of knowledge. Development of new scoring systems must be coupled with the […]
Attentional Shifts Alter Pain Perception in the Chicken
In humans, psychological manipulations such as hypnosis, behavioural modifications, relaxation training and cognitive behaviour therapy have all been used to reduce pain intensity. One thing these treatments have in common is selective attention. Work on attention-based cognitive coping strategies has shown that they have potentially useful analgesic qualities in pain therapy. In animals, there have […]
Voluntary ingestion of buprenorphine in mice
Buprenorphine is a widely used analgesic for laboratory rodents. Administration of the drug in a desirable food item for voluntary ingestion is an attractive way to administer the drug non-invasively. However, it is vital that the animals ingest the buprenorphine-food-item mix as desired. The present study investigated how readily female and male mice (Mus musculus) […]
Behavioural assessment of pain in commercial turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) with foot pad dermatitis
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the differences in susceptibility to foot pad dermatitis (FPD) of two medium-heavy lines of turkeys, and whether FPD is painful, by detailed analysis of behaviour in birds with and without analgesic treatment (betamethasone).Turkeys housed on dry litter in the first experiment generally had more frequent bouts of different behaviours […]
Effects of carprofen, meloxicam and butorphanol on broiler chickens’ performance in mobility tests
Lame broiler chickens perform poorly in standardised mobility tests and have nociceptive thresholds that differ from those of non-lame birds, even when confounding factors such as differences in bodyweight are accounted for. This study investigated whether these altered responses could be due to pain, by comparing performance in a Group Obstacle test and a Latency […]