Changes in Ear Postures of Kid Goats in Response to Ear Tagging

Abstract

No study yet is undertaken to measure pain caused by ear tagging in kid goats using ear postures. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to elucidate the effect of ear tagging procedure on pain in black Karadi kids using ear position and frequency of ear changes. Twenty black Karadi kids, aged 10-14 days, were used in this study. Ear postures were scored using focal sampling and recorded with instantaneous time sampling to measure the duration of each ear posture. Each kid was observed separately for 6 minutes before and 6 minutes after the ear tagging process with 30 seconds intervals. A total of 24 ear posture samples were recorded from each kid. Results revealed that Ear tagging significantly increased ears backward (P<0.01) and decreased ears plane (P<0.001). However, no significant effect of ear tagging was found on ears forward (P<0.19) and asymmetrical postures (P<0.43). In addition, number of ear posture changes was significantly (P<0.001) increased after ear tagging. It was concluded that observing ear postures of kids directly after painful husbandry procedures such as ear tagging is a reliable non-invasive method to assess pain caused by these painful methods and hence helps better understands animal welfare.

Pain Caused by Ear Tagging in Kids of Native Black Goats

“…However, less attention has been given to the ear tagging process in the previous research. A recent study by Hussein and Hidayet (2019) showed that ear tagging affects ear postures of kids in response to ear tagging. In this study, changes in behaviours were found after ear tagging.…”

“…Young farm mammals, such as kid goats and lambs, are exposed routinely to the painful husbandry procedures such as tail docking and ear tagging, and these procedures cause pain to the animals (Guesgen et al, 2016;Hempstead et al, 2017Hempstead et al, , 2018. Pain in animals causes increases in cortisol hormone concentrations, increases in core body temperature in which reduces peripheral temperature and affects the animal's behaviour (Molony et al, 2012;Hussein and Hidayet, 2019). Understanding the animal behaviour is a crucial tool, not only for the production of an animal, but also, for the animal welfare assessment (Broom, 2009).…”

“…The painful husbandry procedures also lead to animals expressing some abnormal behaviours such as foot stamping, head turning and shaking and abnormal standing (Molony et al, 2012;Hempstead et al, 2017). In addition, pain caused by ear tagging affects the ear movement of kid goats (Hussein and Hidayet, 2019). Hussein (2015) showed that abnormal behaviours such as foot stamping and abnormal standing and lying are expressed by lambs after two bloodless castration methods.…”

“…Also, it was revealed by Molony et al (2012) that head turning, vocalization, tail wagging, restlessness and foot stamping are increased in lambs after the application of castration. Recently, there is a growing interest in using a face grimace scale and changes in ear postures to determine pain and diseases in farm animals (Mc Lennan et al, 2016;Guesgen et al, 2016;Hussein and Hidayet, 2019). Focusing on peripheral temperatures, many studies use infrared thermometers and thermographics to determine emotions and pain experienced by animals (Proctor and Carder, 2016;Hussein, 2018).…”

Utilizing Low‐Cost Eggshell Particles to Enhance the Mechanical Response of Mg–2.5Zn Magnesium Alloy Matrix

“…Materials like bone flour and oyster shells though may have been a good source for calcium carbonate, but they exhibit less bioavailability and contain toxic elements such as Al, Cd, and Hg . On the other hand, eggshell being non‐toxic contains about 95% calcium carbonate (source of Ca) in the form of calcite along with 5% organic materials such as sulfated polysaccharides, type X collagen and other proteins exhibiting a clear advantage over other sources of calcium carbonate. Further, the density of ES is relatively lower compared that of the mineral calcium carbonate.…”