Pain in lambs castrated at 2 days using novel smaller and tighter rubber rings without and with local anaesthetic.

Without effective pain relief, rubber ring castration of lambs is acutely painful and can also produce chronic pain. The potential of novel, smaller rubber rings to reduce this pain substantially has been investigated. Three groups of eight 2-3 day old lambs, were castrated either with conventional rubber rings (cRR), or novel smaller rubber rings without (nRR) and with local anaesthetic treatment (nRR+La).

Quantitative assessment of increased sensitivity of chronic laminitic horses to hoof tester evoked pain.

Reasons For Performing Study: To evaluate quantitative sensory testing (QST) of the feet of laminitic horses using a power-assisted hoof tester.

Hypothesis: Hoof Compression Thresholds (HCTs) can be measured reliably and are consistently lower in horses with chronic laminitis than in normal horses.

Methods: HCTs of chronic laminitic (n=7) and normal horses (n=7) were repeatedly measured using a hydraulically powered and feedback controlled hoof tester.

Histological and ultrastructural evidence that recurrent laryngeal neuropathy is a bilateral mononeuropathy limited to recurrent laryngeal nerves.

Reasons For Performing Study: Recurrent laryngeal neuropathy (RLN) is a common and debilitating peripheral nerve disease of horses, but it remains unclear if this disease is a mono- or polyneuropathy. An understanding of the distribution of the neuropathological lesions in RLN affected horses is fundamental to studying the aetiology of this very significant disease of tall horses.

Objective: To determine whether RLN should be classified as a mono- or polyneuropathy.

Randomised, controlled field trial of two new techniques for the castration and tail docking of lambs less than two days of age.

Two methods to reduce the pain associated with the castration and tail docking of lambs with rubber rings were tested by 10 shepherds, each using 60 housed lambs. In 20 of the lambs the innervation to the scrotum, testes and tail was crushed with a 'Big Nipper' bloodless castrator, and in 20 local anaesthetic (2 per cent lignocaine with adrenaline) was injected with a newly developed high-pressure jet injector under the rubber rings after they had been applied; 10 lambs were given a placebo treatment and 10 were treated by the shepherds' routine elastrator ring procedure. Both new methods significantly decreased the incidence of limb and tail movement by 78 per cent and the time spent by the lambs in abnormal postures, when compared with either the shepherds' routine treatment or the placebo treatment.