Clinical abnormalities in working donkeys and their associations with behaviour.

Introductions: Working donkeys are at risk of developing multiple, acute and chronic health problems. The ability to recognise and assess pain in donkeys associated with these health problems is important for people responsible for their care and treatment, including owners and veterinary or animal health workers.

Aims And Objectives: The aims of this study were firstly to quantify the prevalence of a range of clinical abnormalities within a sample of working donkeys; and secondly to find out whether these abnormalities were associated with potential behavioural indicators of pain.

Identifying behavioural differences in working donkeys in response to analgesic administration.

Reasons For Performing Study: To identify pain-related behaviour in working donkeys in order to assist their owners and veterinarians to recognise and manage pain.

Objectives: To identify general and specific behaviours associated with pain or its relief using a trial with the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug meloxicam (Metacam).

Study Design: Observer-blinded, placebo-controlled trial.

Behavioural repertoire of working donkeys and consistency of behaviour over time, as a preliminary step towards identifying pain-related behaviours.

Background: The donkey has a reputation for stoicism and its behavioural repertoire in clinical contexts is under-reported. Lack of understanding of the norms of donkey behaviour and how it may vary over time can compromise use of behavioural measures as indicators of pain or emotional state. The objective of this study was to find out whether the behaviour of working donkeys was influenced by gender, the time of day or differed between days with a view to assessing how robust these measures are for inclusion in a working donkey ethogram.

Thermal nociceptive threshold testing detects altered sensory processing in broiler chickens with spontaneous lameness.

Lameness is common in commercially reared broiler chickens but relationships between lameness and pain (and thus bird welfare) have proved complex, partly because lameness is often partially confounded with factors such as bodyweight, sex and pathology. Thermal nociceptive threshold (TNT) testing explores the neural processing of noxious stimuli, and so can contribute to our understanding of pain. Using an acute model of experimentally induced articular pain, we recently demonstrated that TNT was reduced in lame broiler chickens, and was subsequently attenuated by administration of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs).

Thermal nociception as a measure of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug effectiveness in broiler chickens with articular pain.

Pain associated with poultry lameness is poorly understood. The anti-nociceptive properties of two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were evaluated using threshold testing in combination with an acute inflammatory arthropathy model. Broilers were tested in six groups (n=8 per group).