Assessment and amelioration of pain for improved welfare during routine husbandry procedures in piglets

Routine husbandry procedures for management of piglets include tail-docking, teeth clipping, ear notching and castration. These procedures are widely recognised as painful although detailed work on assessment of pain and the welfare concerns that they incur is yet to be extensively documented in piglets. Furthermore, practical and affordable options for the amelioration of procedural and postprocedural pain are largely undeveloped and unavailable in both the Australian and international pig industries. We have reported on the efficacy of a topical anaesthetic formulation (Tri-Solfen, Bayer Animal health, Australia) for pain alleviation of castration wounds in piglets. Further work is needed to determine combined efficacy with other commercially available analgesics, and with perioperative treatment with vapocoolant spray.