Courier New;Cambria Math;  I am the UW-Extension Agriculture Agent from Taylor County.  Prior to my joining UW-Extension, I practiced for 18 years as a large animal, predominantly dairy veterinarian from Clark and Marathon Counties.  I was raised on a dairy farm.  My husband and I currently own a small beef operation.   - And I am Doctor Sarah Mills-Lloyd, also with UW-Extension Agriculture Agent in Oconto County, and it is my pleasure to be here with you today also.  I do come to Extension with eight years of our General Veterinary Medicine, just like Sandy, and I practiced in northeast Wisconsin.   - So, for this session, we're going to talk about, did it move,  we're going to talk about three well-being concerns  including dehorning or disbudding, it's not moving,  tail docking, and the use of antibiotics on farms.  So, is everybody in the room dairy based or raise your hand if you're dairy based.  Raise your hands if you're beef. 

 Okay, I have more dairy than beef.  To the beef people, I apologize, perhaps for all the dairy pictures; however beef cattle need to be dehorned as well.  So, you will learn some things.  Some beef cattle need to be dehorned as well.  So, hopefully, you will learn some pointers from our topic.  As I go forward, I do need to extend some special thanks to Dr. Sheila McGurck and Chelsea Hauschback from the UW-School of Veterinary Medicine.  You're going to be viewing some of their dehorning slides that they use to teach students at the vet school.   So, as this hard theory (mumbles) article says as media draws attention to our dairy industry we need to continue to work towards humane methods for general farm practices, including dehorning calves.  Dehorning is necessary but so are solutions to make it less painful, says the article, but why is dehorning necessary? In the dairy industry, it has been believed for a long time that horned cattle have less desirable production genetics behind them.  The dairy industry has opted to pursue milk production and growth production over polledness. 

 Well, the reality is having polled animals or having horns is a simple genetic inheritance and it is not linked to production, and it is possible to bring polledness back into our dairy herds.  In fact, ABS Select Sires, Accelerated Genetics, they all now have polled sires that you can select from.   There are new genomics testings available that you can use on your newborn calves to determine if they carry the polled gene.   Inheritance of polledness is a simple one inherited from both the mother and from the sire.  The polled gene is the dominant gene.  Having horns is a recessive trait.   As long as the calf inherits one polled gene, the calf will be polled.  So, if we look at this picture, we have two cattle on top, the sire and the dam.  Both of them are polled.  They were not dehorned before this picture was taken. 

 If we look at the genetics of the sire, he has a homozygous pair of polled genes.  He inherited polledness from both his parents.  The dam on the other hand is a heterozygous polled animal.  She inherited the polled gene from one parent but she also inherited the horn gene from the other parent, but the polledness is dominant.  So, she looks polled.  If you mate these two, all of their calves will look polled.   For some of you who've studied genetics in class, you may have seen some of these 4 X 4 tables, and the second item listed on this table is exactly what we just saw with that picture of that sire and that dam.  The homozygous polled sire mated to that heterozygous polled female.  100% of those calves are gonna look polled but 50% actually have both polled genes and 50% still carry the horn gene.  So, it's gonna take time, but you can accomplish this by continuing to mate for pollness. 

 Eventually, you will get to a herd that does not have to be dehorned or disbudded any longer.   The polled dairy cattle genetics can be found listed on this website by breed.   So it is possible for you to find these animals.   - So, just as a little overview on dehorning.  Horns are the major cause of carcass wastage due to bruising.  Cattle with horns actually incur financial penalties on sale, and dehorned cattle require actually less feeding space.  So, removing those horns are a good task to prevent injuries to people and to cattle.  Dehorned cattle also exhibit fewer aggressive patterns of dominance behavior over cattle with horns.   As a general overview, dehorning is actually a process of which there's two different types.  We actually can remove the bud in disbudding or we can do dehorning. 

 Horns are an adaptation of skin, and that skin originates from germinal tissue called corium.  That corium then processes and then becomes the horn as they grow, and with that, when we remove the horn in the early stages of growth, we refer to that as disbudding verses dehorning as we let that horn grow, we then will have that horn, that horn bud actually attaching to the periosteum of the frontal bone and on top of the frontal sinus.  So, as you know when the cattle become older, what happens then is that that frontal sinus will extend up into the horn and will create a void in that horn.  With that then, there's consequences of us dehorning at later stages in life, and the stages of this dehorning would cause then sinusitis, which is an infection in that sinus because we're exposing it to the environment.  Also then with that, we would have a prolongation in wound healing and also infection with that.  We need to dehorn at an early age because as you can see, it's never too early to not dehorn that animal, and we really need to remove that horn before six weeks of age, before that horn bud actually attaches to the periosteum of that bone, and on the pictures that depict this on the slides, you can see that there are two different pictures here.  One denotes a one to three-day old calf, of which that horn bud is not present verses the two to four-month old calf that you can actually see the horn bud that has attached and become a bony prominence on the top on the poll of that animal.   There are many different methods of dehorning.   One is actually using a hot iron disbudding tool and they come in a couple different varieties.  One variety is through a butane dehorner as noted here. 

  We would also have an electrical disbudding tool and both of these would be selected for the size  of the horn that you are trying to disbud.  They are very common and reliable tools that we would use; however, it is still painful for the animal.  There is a momentary pain degradation because of the thermal injury that you are applying to that horn and if excess thermal heat is applied to that horn you can actually cause thermal injury burns to the bony structures lying underneath of them.  Another tool that we have is actually a scoop or dehorning spoon.  This is actually a Barnes dehorner, and the Barnes dehorner is a tool to use; however, it takes not only just the corium because we need to remove the corium in addition to remove that horn for the longevity of the life of that animal, but with this tool, we also take additional surrounding skin, which will cause other pain for that animal.  Another tool that we can use would be paste.  Caustic paste is used on younger calves; however, there is a potential for damage to surrounding tissues, especially the eyes, skin surrounding that tissue, and also the ears.  So, we need to remember that when we're dehorning animals with younger, as younger animals with the paste.  Another process that you can use is actually elastic bands.  These elastic bands would tighten down on the horn and it actually causes trauma to that animal. 

 It's a pain sensation that they will feel and if you've ever witnessed this, you can actually see the head tilt, that they incur because of the elastic bands placed on those horns.   Dehorning is important, and it's important to also incorporate your veterinarian into the process of the pain management tools that you have, as many of the prescription drugs that are used for this are needing to be prescribed to you by a veterinarian, and you need to have a valid veterinary client-patient relationship.  Prescription products include the local anesthesia, which is Lidocaine, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which Sandy will talk about that, and also sedation using Xylazine.  Your veterinarian would also help you practice this technique on your farm operation because it does require some tools to use this and use them properly.   Before we even clip the hair, the first thing we need to do is restrain the animal by using a halter.  The next thing that we would need to do would be to clip that hair around the horn base in order to best visualize that horn bud.  So, clipping the area is essential if you're using pasty dehorning, but it's also helpful with any dehorning method as you're preventing that hair from matting and then thus then reducing that risk of infection, which is potentially could be there.   Sedation is optional, however, it can make the process of what you do for yourself and for the animal much easier.  The thing we need to remember is that it takes about 5 to 10 minutes after the administration of the medication for that adequate sedation to incur.  So, typically, we would use Xylazine. 

 Xylazine requires then a veterinary prescription.  So, you need to have that veterinary valid client-patient relationship, and it also would incur some meat withhold time.  The meat withhold time established at this current practice right now is four days.   The next thing you need to do is if you are using sedation, you need to observe that animal very closely until they're able to stand.  Xylazine can cause respiratory depression and so we wanna make sure that that animal is safe before we leave it on its own.  There is another way that can we actually reverse it by using Tolazine, which is a Xylazine reversal medication but that too requires a veterinary patient relationship through a veterinary prescription and a four-day meat withhold.   - Sedation alone does not block the pain of the disbudding or the dehorning procedure.  In order to accomplish that, we do need to numb the nerve.  We need to provide local anesthesia to the nerve that innervates the horn, and that nerve is called the cornual nerve.  It is a branch of the fifth trigeminal nerve. 

 So, we accomplish this by injecting Lidocaine halfway between the eye and the horn, and we put that Lidocaine in a subcutaneous injection underneath the frontal ridge.   So, we locate where the cornual nerve is by palpating that frontal ridge formed by our frontal bone, which is like our cheekbone.  We locate it halfway between the lateral canthus or the outside aspect of the eye, the part of the eye that's closer to the ear, and we draw a line from that up to the base of the horn.  We locate a halfway point between that and that frontal bony ridge.  Palpate that and then we inject 2 cc of 2% Lidocaine solution under the skin.  You use a very fine needle for this.  A 20 or 22-gauge needle is ideal.  Using the Lidocaine, again, it's a prescription product.  Your veterinarian would be the one who would allow you to have this drug, and then your veterinarian can also show you how to put the block in.  Lidocaine itself does have a 1-day meat withdrawal. 

  (mumbles) For older calves, sometimes, you will need to put additional local anesthetic around the base of the horn, where the cornual nerve becomes more superficial again.  This will improve analgesia for those horned animals.  That's represented by that red semicircle, placing the Lidocaine behind the actual horn itself.   Once the nerve block is in, the pain relief is almost immediately, but you can give it a couple of minutes just to make sure that everything is good and numb, and while you're doing that, you would have turned on your dehorning equipment so that it is good and hot and ready to go.  At that point, then you would apply your dehorning cautery in a very appropriately-sized manner.  So, you're gonna select the tool that fits the bud or the horn that you're using.  You're gonna apply steady pressure while rotating back and forth for a couple, five to seven seconds, and then you repeat that on the other side.  After heat application, there will be a 2 to 3-millimeter copper-colored ring around that entire horn, and if you were to palpate what's left of the horn, that should be very easily moved by your finger.   The local anesthetic that we put in the Lidocaine abolishes the indicators of pain for the duration of its action, but Lidocaine wears off, and when it does the animal will start to exhibit pain again.  Calves exhibit pain by shaking their head, by looking uncomfortable. 

 They rise and they lay down.  They stop eating.  So, it can behoove us to go ahead and try to extend some of that pain relief by offering some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.  This slide lists some of the drugs that have been used in the past.  Flunixin is the Banamine product.  Phenylbutazone and ketoprofen are both drugs that are not approved for use in livestock today, and then there's aspirin.  Aspirin Bolus can be used, although they have no formal FDA approval, but if you look at the slide, you will see that the half-life of aspirin is about a half an hour in calves.  They're gonna get pain relief for about a half an hour.  Banamine will provide you about a three to a eight-hour half-life, but when you use Banamine, again you incur a meat withdrawal and Banamine has to be given IV.   So, again your veterinarian would have to show you how to place Banamine in the vein of these calves, and the Banamine then incurs the four-day meat withdrawal. 

  So, is there something better for analgesia?  There is now currently a drug that has been approved for humans to treat arthritis and it's called meloxicam.  Meloxicam tablets have 100% oral bioavailability in ruminant calves.  So, they work.  They actually provide a full 27 hours of pain relief.  So, this means they can be given once a day.  They come in a small tablet and for a calf that's still on milk they're pretty easy to give.  This drug is not available in the United States.  We get it from other countries, and in Canada the meat withdrawal is 20 days.  Meloxicam does represent legal extra-label drug use.  So again, you have to use your veterinarian to get this drug, and your veterinarian could help you with dosing and when and how to give it. 

  - So we realized this talk is about pain mitigation for animal well being; however, we would be remiss if we didn't mention tail docking and judicious use of antibiotics.   Animal welfare aspect of tail docking is under scrutiny.  It has been promoted and recommended in the past, even by UW-Extension under the guides that it has improved milk quality; however, science does not support this use, and major veterinary medical associations and organizations actually oppose tail docking, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.  Major purchasers of fluid milk and also processors are actually starting to oppose this practice.   If you're a national dairy farm, farmers assuring responsible management certified, you will need to end tail docking by this year.  If not found in compliance, you will receive a warning to change your practice.  After the warning, if you have not made strides to change this action, milk processors may end pickup for your fluid milk that you have.  In this current economic climate, are you willing to place yourself in a position to not have an income and try to find another outlet for your fluid milk? These are current milk cooperatives and cheese processors who uphold the National FARM Program.   My question to you is, is your milk plant listed there? These include Agropur, BelGioiso, Dairy Farmers of America, Foremost Farms, Grande Cheese, Grassland, Land O'Lakes, National Farmers Organization, Saputo Cheese, and Sartori;  however, alternatives to tail docking do exist.  Three alternatives would be cattle clippers, sheep shears, and also a tail well. 

 Cattle clippers are used to trim the switch to the long hairs on the tail and to actually shave the tail.  It is time consuming and the blades will dull quickly, especially if animals are bedded in sand stalls and/or they have manure tags on their tail.  Sheep shears are readily available, and they're very easy to use.  In two to three quick snips, you'll actually have those switches trimmed.  They are easy to resharpen; however, those sharp blades do pose risk to workers and also cattle.  The tail well is a cordless drill attachment.  It's quick and it's done in one single easy step of dehairing those switches; however, it comes with an expense, and the expense is not only in the piece of equipment itself but also in the maintenance of that piece of equipment in sharpening and also in the cordless drill batteries that you need to use.   So, who is really driving some of this change? Most consumers have little or no animal knowledge of agriculture.  There was a direct connection to agriculture about 50 years ago, but now we are three to four generations removed from our agrarian society.  When consumers think of dairy farms, they envision really old pastoral scenes of cows grazing on grass and calves frolicking in the field, but what does this mean for farmers?  Not only are tail docking, dehorning, and judicious use of antibiotics consumer and industry concerns, they are ours too as producers and farmers. 

 If your milk is sold to milk cooperatives and cheese processors who are national farm certified and compliant, you may need to address the issue of pain mitigation and management practices.   Some definitions about what and how to accomplish this on our dairy, beef, swine, and poultry operations have already been established for us by corporations.  If you look at Nestle's website, you can find the written statements about farm animal health and welfare.   As stated on their website in 2014, "We continue to build on public commitment "to continuously improve the health, "care, and welfare of farm animals "and our global supply chain." Their commitment is built around the internationally recognized Five Freedoms established in 1965.  These Five Freedoms are the freedom from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition, freedom from fear and distress, freedom from physical and thermal discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, and freedom to express normal patterns of behavior.   If we look closer at the practices they advocate, you will find this actually on their website, and you will notice, on the wording, it says "Some specific practices we have committed "to eliminate include" if we look at for cattle, it lists dehorning, tail docking, disbudding, and castration without anesthetic and analgesia.  Pain mitigation is their concern, and it should have been ours as producers all along; however, now our agriculture industry is needing to follow protocol set for us, rather leading the charge our self on these issues.   - Antibiotics are medications that are used to treat bacterial infections.   The problem is that bacteria are developing resistance to the antibiotics at a faster rate than what pharmaceutical companies are designing new antibiotics.  Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is now considered to be a global, public health threat. 

 So, we need to handle antibiotics as the precious resource that they are.  There are new federal rules coming in to play this year for how we will use antibiotics on our farm.   In the past, we've been allowed to use feed and water antibiotics in a way that would produce and encourage the growth and production of animals.  That use is being banned.  Going forward, we have to, we can only use antibiotics to treat and control and prevent infections.  Going forward, antibiotic use on farms will be more and more under the direction of your veterinarian.  Using our best management practices reflected by the Five Freedoms is what really helps us to prevent infections, and therefore,  allows us to not have to use antibiotics,  and it's not just Nestle who has this perspective.  These points listed here in this slide summarize Walmart's written statements for how they plan to provide their customers with safe, affordable, and sustainable food, as well as promote the humane treatment of animals.  Their written statement is summarized by these four points, and if you as a farmer don't follow these four points, then perhaps Walmart will not procure food from you.   It is expected that farmers will not tolerate and will report all instances of animal abuse. 

 It is expected that farmers will adopt the Five Freedoms that Sarah just mentioned, and that you will implement good management practices and that you will be transparent in what you are doing on your farm.  It is important that we explain  and discuss what it is we are doing on our farms, what procedures are being used on a daily basis, that we justify what we are doing, including the antibiotics that we use.   Recognition of pain in cattle is difficult.  Cattle are prey animals.  They will hide the fact that they are painful, but just because they're not showing their pain, that does not mean we should continue to ignore the fact that they are painful;  however, this is what we're currently up against.  There are no pain relief drugs specifically approved for analgesia in cattle in the United States.  So, all the drugs we use are extra-label and have to be used under the supervision of a veterinarian.  There is a time delay between drug administration and their onset of activity.  Routes of administration can be inconvenient, like Banamine has to be given IV.  The drugs themselves can have short half-lives. 

 So you have to necessitate frequent re-administration, and then there's these costs of these drugs, and the cost of the meat and the milk withdrawal.  We can overcome all of these points and we will.  They will all become less cumbersome as we become more educated and more willing to practice them and incorporate them into our daily routines.   Including polledness in our selection indexes and in our long-term breeding strategies has the potential to reduce and eventually eliminate the need to dehorn.  Remember, there are things that we can do to help build our rapport with our consumer and corporations to let them know that we are striving to be and to do the best we can for our industry.   It'll take concerted effort by all of us to keep moving forward with our management practices to alleviate animal welfare concerns.  Animal welfare is not going away and nor should it, but we can be the first to incite change rather than be dictated to, as to what changes we will have to make.  (audience applauds)