January’s column talked about the Canadian Cow-Calf Survey that the Beef Cattle Research Council is running to help focus our research priorities and extension efforts. But the information from this survey also helps us demonstrate the value of research to government funders and helps support efforts to improve consumer confidence.
The government angle is important because the BCRC stretches the research portion of your Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off dollar as far as we can by matching each Check-Off dollar with one or more government research dollars. Governments are much more likely to (co)fund our projects when they have confidence that industry will use the results, when it makes sense to do so.
The consumer confidence angle is important because consumers enjoy beef – but they don’t want to feel guilty about eating it. Some groups try to reduce or eliminate beef consumption by undermining consumer confidence. These days, “cows produce greenhouse gas” is a prominent guilt strategy to discourage meat consumption, but animal welfare concerns – like the pain experienced during castration – are also popular.
All beef producers understand that castrating bull calves early heads off worse welfare problems (like fighting, injury and unwanted pregnancies) down the road. But castration is still painful, no matter how you do it. Surgical castration is mostly acute pain – it hurts a lot during and immediately after the surgery. The longer-term (chronic) pain diminishes as the wound heals. Band castration may cause less acute pain when the band goes on, but is followed by more chronic pain, then a resurgence of acute pain when the scrotum sloughs off.
Generally, the earlier calves are castrated, the better. Castrating calves in the first few days of life leads to a smaller wound, faster healing and less profound impacts on growth compared to castrating older calves at spring processing, weaning or in the feedlot. There’s also some evidence that newborn calves feel less pain than older calves. Castrating calves as young as possible is generally best for animal welfare, but small, cuddly baby calves also tug at the heartstrings more, if you’re trying to make a consumer feel guilty about eating beef.
Producers couldn’t do much to practically alleviate castration pain until injectable meloxicam was approved for use in Canadian cattle a few years ago. This was followed by even more user-friendly anti-inflammatory drugs, including pour-on banamine and an oral meloxicam developed by a Canadian company (Solvet).
At the same time, industry-funded research demonstrated that meloxicam reduced surgical or castration pain in calves at weaning, spring processing and even shortly after birth (although weaning weights didn’t improve). This independent science supported the efforts of extension experts, veterinarians, industry groups (and, of course, the drug companies) to encourage the adoption of these products. Industry surveys then tracked how producers adopted them across the country over the years.
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