Abstract
Simple SummaryAustralian sheep undergo painful procedures such as castration as part of routine husbandry practices, usually without any pain relief. Pain can be difficult to measure in prey animals like sheep due to their propensity to hide their pain behavior; and due to the complexity of the impact of a commercial production environment and interaction with handlers on physiological or endocrine measures. Electroencephalography (EEG), the measure of electrical activity in the brain, has been successfully demonstrated under general anaesthesia to objectively measure pain in livestock. However, the practicality of this application in the field is limited. We propose the use of EEG for objectively measuring pain in conscious lambs undergoing castration. Here we reveal that EEG can not only quantify the pain of castration, but also distinguish between anaesthetic interventions. This method has practical advantages that make it a useful measure of pain relief in sheep. Australian sheep routinely undergo painful surgical husbandry procedures without anaesthesia or analgesia. Electroencephalography (EEG) has been shown to be a successful measure of pain in livestock under a general anaesthetic. The aim of this study was to compare this EEG model to that of conscious lambs undergoing castration with and without local anaesthesia. Sixteen merino crossbred ram lambs 6 to 8 weeks of age (13.81kg ± 1.97) were used in the study. Lambs were randomly allocated to 1 of 4 treatment groups: (1) Conscious EEG and surgical castration with no anaesthetic intervention (CON; n = 4); (2) Conscious EEG and surgical castration with pre-operative applied intra-testicular lignocaine injection (CON + LIG; n = 4); (3) surgical castration under minimal anaesthesia (MAM; n = 4); (4) and surgical castration with pre-operative lignocaine injection (2 mL lignocaine hydrochloride 20 mg/mL, under minimal anaesthesia (MAM + LIG; n = 4). Distinct differences in the EEG parameters Ptot, F50 and F95 between pre-and post-castration in conscious lambs were demonstrated in this study (p < 0.01). Further, CON and CON + LIG treatments were distinguishable using F50 and F95 measures (p = 0.02, p = 0.04, respectively). Significant changes in the EEG output of MAM animals were identified pre- to post-castration (p < 0.01). The EEG output of MAM and MAM + LIG were similar. EEG was successful in differentiating lambs treated with pain relief in a conscious state after castration by examining F50 and F95, which may suggest the suitability of conscious EEG pain measurement.
Highlights
Invasive husbandry procedures are routinely conducted on livestock across Australia as standard practice to improve production, health and wellbeing
Surgical husbandry procedures conducted on sheep include tail docking, castration, mulesing and ear tagging
The Australian animal welfare standards and guidelines for sheep recommend the use of pain management when castrating sheep; it is only compulsory for lambs over 6 months of age [2] despite aversive behavioural and physiological responses having been observed in younger lambs from 5 days up to 45 days of age in response to castration [3,4,5,6,7]
Summary
Invasive husbandry procedures are routinely conducted on livestock across Australia as standard practice to improve production, health and wellbeing. Surgical husbandry procedures conducted on sheep include tail docking, castration, mulesing and ear tagging. The Australian animal welfare standards and guidelines for sheep recommend the use of pain management when castrating sheep; it is only compulsory for lambs over 6 months of age [2] despite aversive behavioural and physiological responses having been observed in younger lambs from 5 days up to 45 days of age in response to castration [3,4,5,6,7]. Studies have shown electroencephalographic changes indicative of pain are observable in lambs from as young as 2 weeks of age [8,9]. It is subject to individual experience, and in sheep, expression can be influenced by their stoic nature as a prey species
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