Dr. Hans Coetzee, associate professor at Iowa State University, speaking at the International Cattle Welfare Symposium in July, addressed the growing trend toward analgesic care in a presentation outlining whether analgesics pay for themselves on beef operations.
Coetzee said the debate focuses primarily on castration and dehorning as the herd health management practices that could routinely target pain reduction. But to make analgesics work, they’ll need to pay off with higher gains.
Coetzee said the need to develop these routines starts with castration in and of itself. According to the most recent National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) data surveys, 41 percent of beef producers do not castrate their bulls prior to a sale.
USDA data show around eight million calves castrated a year, with a total calf crop of 33.9 million in 2013.
Additionally, one in five operations do not castrate calves before they are more than 122 days old, according to Coetzee, and only one in five veterinarians currently report a routine in analgesic use in castration.
One key challenge creating those trends, Coetzee said, is that the U.S. does not have any FDA products that are formally approved to provide analgesia – or painkiller – to livestock.
“The reason for this is because we don’t have a validated method of pain assessment that we’ve been able to use to satisfy the FDA.
“We have drugs that are labeled as anti-inflammatory and antipyretics, that are NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) class that are known to have analgesic properties, but in terms of drugs we can use for analgesia, that list is pretty short – it’s zero.”
Creating care or value?
But changing protocols – especially among competing proteins – could have a game-changing effect on the beef industry. Pork production is already seeing routine calls for analgesic drug administration. When one species production adopts a certain practice, anything that produces protein is going to be in the same category of change, Coetzee explained.
Pork producers got the message from Tyson in letters sent in early 2014. In addition to endorsing third-party farm audits, video monitoring and changes to housing systems, the company said it would support “development and use of pain mitigation for tail docking and castration for piglets.”
“Although this is a topic of debate within our industry, we believe current practices need to improve,” the letter said. “Tyson will fund research to further improve practical pain mitigation methods.
In the meantime, we encourage producers to adopt practices that reduce or eliminate the pain associated with these procedures, including the use of anesthetics and analgesics that are approved for use in pigs and/or permissible under the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act (AMDUCA).”
Coetzee said Tyson’s message will soon be extended for the care of beef animals.
“So given we do not have any analgesic drugs approved in the U.S., we have to default to AMDUCA,” he explained.
Under AMDUCA, extra-label drug use is permitted provided it meets specific requirements, Coetzee said.
“Extra-label drugs use for pain management requires that it’s used under the supervision of a veterinarian and that a valid veterinarian relationship is in place before extra-label use is permitted.
“They are approved for therapeutic uses only so the animal’s health is suffering or threatened. These are not approved for use for production purposes. So we can use drugs in an extra-label manner for analgesia, but if such use results in the violative food residue, you’re in a bunch of trouble. That’s the thing we’ve got to be very careful about.”
Ethical expectations
Many producers will ask what the economic impact will be of adding analgesic care. If they’re required to pay for it, where will the return show up?
“The first and more obvious one is access to markets,” Coetzee said. Specific markets are growing more concerned on how pain is regulated in livestock used for food. As American producers adopt more protocols, the product will be viewed as safer and higher-quality.
“The E.U. have taken this very seriously on the swine side and basically all pigs that are castrated in E.U. have to receive an analgesic. And those types of regulations are being applied to other proteins as well.”
As analgesia becomes commonly accepted among pork animals, the public perception will be extended to other animal production systems.
“The public does believe this is the right thing to do. And so it’s important for us to realize this, as soon as someone comes up and says all swine producers are going to have to use analgesics, the public’s first response will be, ‘Weren’t they using analgesics all along?’”
And if beef doesn’t follow suit, Coetzee explained, the explanation isn’t going to cast the beef industry in the best light.
“If there’s any question within this room about whether this is going to become a requirement or not, I think that train is rapidly leaving the station; it may have already left.
“It’s going to be one of the things to be a surprise to them that folks have not been using analgesics all along. Then the explanation’s going to be, ‘Beef doesn’t do it, and pigs do?’”
Pain relief adding pounds
Coetzee said data showing the outcomes of pain management during dehorning recorded an impact on average daily gain and average daily intake using a variety of combinations.
“With the effects of pain medication on average daily gain after the dehorning of calves, you’ll see the studies being published – overwhelmingly the majority favor the medication,” Coetzee said. “Overall in terms of average daily gain, there does seem to be a benefit with using an analgesic drug.
But most of these are over a fairly short period of time – some for only 24 hours, some are after 10 days.”
As for anesthetic and analgesic use prior to castration, several studies have assessed the result on feed intake, average daily weight gain and inflammatory mediators. “In most cases, the results of these studies have not shown a significant difference in performance between treated and control calves,” Coetzee wrote in a presentation summary.
Another study evaluated the effect of meloxicam, an NSAID drug, on performance and health of calves received as steers compared to bull calves surgically castrated on arrival at the feedlot.
Final results showed meloxicam didn’t improve growth or feed intake in castrated bulls or steers. But the drug did reduce the number of pulls and the number of BRD treatments in castrated calves – but not in steers. 
PHOTOS
TOP PHOTO: Dr. Dee Griffin of the University of Nebraska demonstrates the location for administering an anesthetic prior to dehorning.
BOTTOM PHOTO: Dr. Hans Coetzee of Iowa State University. Photos by David Cooper
