Social context and other factors influence the behavioural expression of pain by lambs

Guesgen, M.J.; Beausoleil, Ngaio J.; Minot, Edward O.; Stewart, Mairi; Stafford, Kevin J.

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2014.07.008

Cited by 25 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Pain related behaviours such as lip curling, trembling, abnormal postures and vocalisations have been well documented when assessing pain in lambs undergoing tail docking and castration (Grant, 2004;Guesgen et al, 2014;Molony et al, 2002). Observing behavioural changes can be time consuming, making it impractical for on-farm settings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in sheep

McLennan

Rebelo

Corke

et al. 2016

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

148

205

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The development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in sheep Article Title: Development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in Trained observers reliably and accurately used the SPFES to detect pain in sheep.Treatment of disease reduced the total facial pain score of adult sheep.Total pain scores positively correlated with lesion and lameness scores.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in sheep

McLennan

Rebelo

Corke

et al. 2016

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

148

205

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This supports that difficulties would arise when assessing behavioural changes in prey animals like ruminants (Dobromylskyj et al, 2000;Fitzpatrick et al, 2006) whereby these animals perceived humans as predators (Grandin and Johnson, 2005). Being a social animal species, the behavioural expressions of pain within the first 3 h of treatment were buffered by their pen mates that exhibited fear behaviour (Guesgen et al, 2014). This also supports the suggestions that the absence of visual signs of pain does not indicate that the animals are not experiencing pain (Anil et al, 2002;Underwood, 2002).…”

Section: Main Findings In This Thesissupporting

confidence: 71%

“…Although the lambs displayed fear behaviour within the first 2 h of treatment, it was not evident in the cortisol responses that the animals were stressed. Sheep are known to be gregarious animals (Arnold, 1985) and it is a common observation that the behavioural expression of pain can be buffered by the behaviour of other pen mates (Guesgen et al, 2014). This indicates that behaviour assessment can be easily confounded and is more of a subjective assessment, which could contribute to a false stress response.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is a survival advantage for the prey animal to not display any abnormal behaviour, which might attract a predator's attention, hence adding difficulties when assessing pain response in these animals (Dobromylskyj et al, 2000;Fitzpatrick et al, 2006). Sheep for example, are gregarious animals (Arnold, 1985), and it is a common behaviour that they mimic the behaviour of their fellow herd or pen mates, therefore making it challenging to identify pain-related behaviour in individual animals (Guesgen et al, 2014). This behaviour is also observed in cattle, in which calves that were castrated by rubber bands displayed pain-related behaviour in the absence of humans, but would run to their herd mates when a human walked up to their pen (Grandin and Johnson, 2005).…”

Section: Objective Indicators Of Pain and Stress In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Refining a ‘toolkit’ for objective assessment of pain and stress in ruminants

Othman¹

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Pain is a complex phenomenon, and to address pain management in animals, the presence of pain needs to be determined. Most studies assess the presence of pain based on the appraisal of either a single biomarker or a combination of a few parameters, which were often not examined simultaneously. In ruminants, measurements of cortisol and haptoglobin (Hp), and the assessment of behavioural changes have been the standard practice for this purpose. Nevertheless, there are still limitations in using these parameters, as they are also indicators of psychological stress, and can be misinterpreted as to indicate the presence of pain. Assessment of behavioural changes in ruminants can be difficult as prey animals conceal their experience of pain to avoid predators' attention.Therefore it is recommended that a reliable assessment tool be devised that includes a combination of various parameters to determine the presence of pain in ruminants in order to address pain management effectively.The primary aims of this study were to evaluate the conventional and contemporary biomarkers to determine the response of an animal to a noxious experience, and to refine a multi-parameter 'toolkit' that can be applied in assessing pain in ruminants. For these purposes, castration was used as a model of a common painful husbandry procedure that presumably evokes pain associated with the tissue injury.Merino cross lambs were assigned to two groups that were either surgically castrated or subjected to restraint stress (control). Castration was an open surgical technique without the provision of anaesthesia or analgesia. The conventional biomarkers estimated were plasma cortisol, Hp and betaendorphin (β-EP). The contemporary biomarkers measured were interleukin-6 (IL-6), substance P (SP), and prostaglandin E 2 (PGE 2 ). The peripheral leukocytes expression of IL-6 and proopiomelanocortin (POMC), the precursor of β-EP were also estimated. Behavioural changes were recorded to assess pain-related behaviour caused by the surgical procedure.Following treatment, the cortisol concentration in the castrated lambs was higher than control animals from ten minutes to two hours post-castration, indicative of the acute noxious experience associated with the surgical procedure. Surgical castration also caused a response in SP indicative of nociception and neurogenic inflammation, which was increased from 30 minutes and became significant eight hours following castration. The behavioural assessment showed that the castrated lambs demonstrated statue standing, a pain-like behaviour, from three to five hours post-castration, which were associated with the increase in SP, indicative of the pain sensitisation caused by the tissue injury. Increase in the systemic inflammatory mediators, the Hp and IL-6 were observed from ii day two, in which Hp remained significant until day four and resolved by day five. The IL-6 continued to increase over time, suggesting of an ongoing inflammatory response and inflammatory pain possibly until wound healing had occurre...

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“…In support of our hypothesis, twin lambs were found to offer more comfortlike behaviour to their sibling than were unrelated lambs. 32 This work is also innovative in that it applied the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) approach to this question. QBA applies statistical techniques to analyse untrained people's intuitive interpretations of animal behaviour.…”

Section: Innovative Behavioural Techniques For Exploring Animal Emotimentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific evaluation of animal emotions: Brief history and recent New Zealand contributions

Beausoleil¹,

Stratton²,

Guesgen³

et al. 2016

JNZS

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The idea of animals having emotions was once rejected as being anthropomorphic and unscientific. However, with society’s changing views and advances in scientific knowledge and technology, the idea of animal emotions is becoming more accepted. Emotions are subjective internal experiences that can’t be measured directly. Animal welfare scientists must infer emotions by measuring the behavioural, physiological and neurobiological components of emotional experience. In this paper, we describe innovative ways in which these indicators have been used by New Zealand scientists to facilitate a more holistic understanding of the emotions and welfare of animals.

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Social context and other factors influence the behavioural expression of pain by lambs

Cited by 25 publications

References 33 publications

Development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in sheep

Development of a facial expression scale using footrot and mastitis as models of pain in sheep

Refining a ‘toolkit’ for objective assessment of pain and stress in ruminants

Scientific evaluation of animal emotions: Brief history and recent New Zealand contributions

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