Animal behavior provides insight into best practice: …...Animal behavior provides insight into...

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Animal behavior provides insight into best practice: Detecting and mitigating BRD

sickness and disbudding pain

Cassandra Tucker

Health &biologicalfunction (bodies)

Naturalness(natures)

Feelings(minds)

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How does BRD affect animal welfare? What insights can behavior provide?

Rachel Toaff-Rosenstein (PhD student, DVM)

Laurel Gershwin (UC Davis vet school, DVM)

Adroaldo Zanella (SAC, DVM)

Cassandra Tucker (UC Davis Animal Science)

Bovine Respiratory Disease

• Largest cause of mortality and morbidity for cattle

• Poor sensitivity and specificity of detection

Goals:

• Improve understanding sickness response

• Identify promising ways to improve detection & evaluate treatment

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NSAID

• In US feedlots, 40% treat with combination NSAID + antibiotic

• Reduce lung lesions & increases weight gain, but evidence is mixed

• Could be included to improve welfare?

• Meloxicam used because of relatively long half life (26-28 h in cattle)

Characterization of behavioral and physiological changes associated with BRD

Challenge model: BRSV + H. somni

52 Angus-cross steers; average weight, 300 kgToday: subset n=20 where analysis is complete

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June to September 2011; 3 replicates

Timeline

day -7

move into individual pens

day 13

return to herd; monitored for 1 additional week

infect with BRSVday 0

day 5

infect with H. somni

treatment

day 8

4 treatments (13 steers/each):BRDBRD+meloxicamHealthyHealthy+meloxicam

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Daily clinical exam

Cytokines, pharmacokinetics, prostaglandins

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Daily feed intake

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Dry

mat

ter

inta

ke %

BW

Day relative to viral infection

BRD

Healthy

** ** ** ** ****

* ** ****

BRD steers reduce feed intake

Growsafe

• 1 bin/8 animals

• $72,000USD/bin

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24-h monitoring of rectal temperature

39.0

39.5

40.0

40.5

41.0

41.5

42.0

42.5

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Max

rec

tal t

emp

erat

ure

, °C

Day relative to viral challenge

Healthy

BRD

**** ** **

Steers show febrile response to BRD

24-h monitoring of lying behavior

8

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Lyi

ng

tim

e, h

/d

Day relative to viral challenge

Healthy

BRD

* *

Small changes in lying time in response to BRD; biologically significant?

Mechanical nociceptive threshold

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

No

cice

pti

ve t

hre

sho

ld,

PS

I

Day relative to viral challenge

Healthy

BRD

*

BRD steers more sensitive

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Grooming behavior

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Pro

po

rtio

n o

f o

bse

rved

in

terv

als

wit

h

bru

sh

Day relative to viral challenge

BRD

Healthy

BRD steers groom less

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Response Promising? Practical?

Feed intake $$$

Rectal temp

Lying behavior

Painthreshold

Grooming behavior

???

Next: Changes in grooming behavior associated with BRD

• Develop brush that detects grooming with RFID (lower cost)

• Test specificity & sensitivity with challenge model

• Eventually, will use this to evaluate effect of a NSAID with naturally occurring BRD

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How does disbudding affect animal welfare? What insights can behavior provide?

Erin Mintline, Mairi Stewart, Gwyn Verkerk, Andrea Rogers, Joe Stookey,

Jim Webster, Cassandra Tucker

Canadian 2009 Dairy Code of Practice“Pain control must be used

when dehorning or disbudding.”

Goals:

• Improve understanding longer-term pain associated with disbudding

• Identify promising ways to improve & evaluate treatment

• Emphasis on novel approaches

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illness

hunger

pain

play

Lidocaine (LA) Meloxicam (NSAID)

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LA

NSAID

DB

3 h

Play test

24 h

playDB

DB + LA

control

LA + NSAID

DB + LA + NSAID

LAplay?

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Calves disbudded without NSAID bucked less

#/10

min

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

Control DB+LA+NSAID DB

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Control DB+LA+NSAID DB

Calves disbudded without NSAID ran less

sec/

10 m

in

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Calves given LA bucked less

#/10

min

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Control DB+LA LA

Calves given LA bucked less, but not if given NSAID

#/10

min

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Control DB+LA LA LA+NSAID

Play behavior reduced at 3 h, but not at 24 h

• Meloxicam still active

• Repeated testing might be a problem?

• Unclear how pain changes in hours and days after procedure

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Disbudding wounds sensitive up to 75 h

No overall effect of pain relief

Meloxicam attenuates responsewhen test with 1-2 kg pressureHeinrich et al., 2010

Next: Wound healing and spontaneous play

• Spontaneous play in home pen, rather than in separate test situation

• Wound sensitivity with more pressure, evaluate until healed

• Look at repeated dosing of NSAID after disbudding

• Eventually, will better understand nature of longer-term pain associated with disbudding

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Health &biologicalfunction (bodies)

Naturalness(natures)

Feelings(minds)

Meloxicam (pain relief)nociceptive threshold

body temperature

clinical signs

grooming behavior

lying behaviorfeed intake

cytokines play behavior

wound sensitivity

Take home message

• Combining disciplines (e.g. behavior & physiology) provides insight into animal welfare

• These results inform better practices

Questions?

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