Investigating the use of local nerve blocks and general anaesthesia in reducing pain during and after disbudding procedure in goat kids

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to compare the pain responses (as measured by noise and movement) during administration of local anaesthetic and during and after disbudding in goat kids. Eighty, seven- to ten-day-old, Saanen goat kids from one farm were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of four different methods of pain relief. Twenty kids had local anaesthetic (LA) applied at two sites per horn bud (LA group), 20 kids had LA applied to the two locations using a jet injector (JI group) and 20 kids were given a general anaesthetic (GA) using a combination of 0.02 mg/kg medetomidine and 2 mg/kg ketamine followed by a horn bud block applied as per the LA group (GA group). The remaining 20 kids had no treatment other than meloxicam (control group). Although responses between goat kids and at different time periods were variable, in comparison to the control group, GA eliminated the responses associated with injection of lignocaine and the responses during the period of disbudding, and provided a reduction in head scratches and shakes across multiple time periods.

KEYWORDS:

• Goat kids
• pain response
• topical anaesthetics
• horn bud
• jet injector

Abbreviations

GA	=	General Anaesthetic
LA	=	Local Anaesthetic
JI	=	Jet Injector
C	=	Control
IR	=	Incidence Risk

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Duncan McLane for the use of his facilities, goats, and help in setting up the design, and Alison Cullum from Anexa Animal Health and Jane McDermott from VetEnt for their help in trial design and carrying out the trial on the day.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2023.2214271.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Dairy Goat Co-operative (NZ) Ltd.