The effects of ring castration with local anaesthesia and analgesia in Holstein calves at 3 months of age on welfare indicators

From an animal welfare point of view it may be perceived that ring castration of young calves due to stress and pain is unacceptable. The question is, is this really the case? Researchers Marti and co-workers addressed this issue in a study published in 2010 in the Journal of Animal Science, Volume 88, pages 2789 to 2796. The title of the paper is: Effects of ring castration with local anaesthesia and analgesia in Holstein calves at 3 months of age on welfare indicators.

Young bull calves from the dairy herd are often castrated in the US because meat quality is negatively affected if not, because of bull sexual behaviour and aggression. This is done by either burdizzo or ring castration. Ring castration has been shown to be more effective but has been questioned from an animal welfare point of view because of research showing abnormal standing posture for one or two weeks after castration, maybe indicating uncomfortable pain levels. The present authors therefore designed a study where they castrated 24 three-month old Holstein calves using local anaesthesia and a drug to reduce pain, and compared the behaviour and stress levels with 23 non-castrated calves of similar age.

The results confirmed the abnormal standing posture reported in earlier studies and the average daily weight gains of the castrated calves were also lower than that of the non-castrated calves. However, welfare indicators such as dry feed intake, serum cholesterol, serum haptoglobin concentration and wound healing were unaffected by ring castration. The authors therefore concluded that ring castration with local anaesthesia and pain relieve with an appropriate drug does not greatly compromise animal welfare. Thus, ring castration done in this way can be recommended.