ArticleScientific reports2019
Calf aversion to hot-iron disbudding.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Calves disbudded with local nerve block and analgesic show conditioned place aversion two days later but not in the hours post-disbudding.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2026Article
- Cognition of dairy cattle: Implications for animal welfare and dairy science.JDS communications · 2025Review
- Pain and pessimism affect calves' play behaviours post-disbudding.Discover animals · 2025Article
- Pain Relief Interventions in Australian Livestock Husbandry: A Review of Animal Welfare and Pain Duration.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
- Article
- An exploration of surface temperature asymmetries as potential markers of affective states in calves experiencing or observing disbudding.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2024Article
- Pain pathophysiology and pharmacology of cattle: how improved understanding can enhance pain prevention, mitigation, and welfare.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Using the conditioned place preference paradigm to assess hunger in dairy calves: Preliminary results and methodological issues.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2024Article
- Exploring the effect of pain on response to reward loss in calves.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Calves peak-end memory of pain.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Unraveling the phenotypic and genomic background of behavioral plasticity and temperament in North American Angus cattle.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2023Article
- Pain in the hours following surgical and rubber ring castration in dairy calves: Evidence from conditioned place avoidance.JDS communications · 2022Article
- Genetic Modeling and Genomic Analyses of Yearling Temperament in American Angus Cattle and Its Relationship With Productive Efficiency and Resilience Traits.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Organic Dairy Cattle: Do European Union Regulations Promote Animal Welfare?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2020Review
- CRISPR/Cas12a mediated knock-in of the Polled Celtic variant to produce a polled genotype in dairy cattle.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Conditioned place preference reveals ongoing pain in calves 3 weeks after disbudding.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Article
- Article
- Assessing the affective component of pain, and the efficacy of pain control, using conditioned place aversion in calves.Biology letters · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Dairy calves are routinely disbudded by cauterization with a hot iron. To mitigate the intra-operative and initial post-operative pain associated with this procedure some farmers provide calves general and local anesthetics, but it is unknown if the procedure remains aversive. We used a place-conditioning paradigm to assess aversion caused by hot-iron cautery with a local anesthetic compared to a sham procedure. A test area was divided into three equally sized pens: two 'treatment' pens with distinct visual cues were connected by a central 'neutral' pen. Each calf went through the disbudding procedure and a 6-h recovery period in one treatment pen and the control procedure in the other treatment pen. In three tests (48, 72 and 96 h after the second treatment), calves could freely roam among the pens until they chose to lie down, ending the session. Calves spent less time in either of the treatment pens compared to the central pen. When only comparing the two treatment pen, calves spent less time in the disbudding pen, especially during the first test. Calves were also less likely to lie down in the pen associated with the disbudding procedure. We conclude that even with the use of a local anesthetic, hot-iron disbudding is salient and aversive for calves, indicating the need to refine or avoid the procedure.
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