Lidocaine Shown Viable Option for Minimising Pain at Castration

November 18, 2015 — 

A veterinarian with Prairie Swine Health Services says research conducted on behalf of the National Pork Board has shown Lidocaine to be a viable option for managing pain in piglets at castration. [Source: Farmscape.ca, November 13, 2015 by Bruce Cochrane]

Last month the Western Canadian Association of Swine Veterinarians named Dr. Jessica Law, a Veterinarian with Prairie Swine Health Services and a 2015 graduate of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary, one of two inaugural winners of the WCASV Maxwell Award.

As part of a National Pork Board project Dr. Law was involved in research looking at pain management when castrating piglets. She says the project was designed to demonstrate to producers the feasibility of adding anesthesia to their processing protocols.

Clip-Dr. Jessica Law-Prairie Swine Health Services: During this research we found that piglets given Lidocaine injections prior to castration were less painful than piglets without anesthetic. It was also found that the use of Lidocaine prior to castration reduced the pain significantly. This was measured through the frequency of call rates.

When Lidocaine was given 4 minutes to take effect before a castration the frequency of the call rates were lower than the control and, even when we left the piglets for only 2 minutes after the Lidocaine injection, the frequency of the calls were lower than the control piglets.

Another aspect looked at was the change in processing time. It was found that the addition of the Lidocaine injections to the protocol did not significantly increase the processing times, the cost was less 10 cents per piglet and the farm personnel found this technique easy and safe to use and perform.

This research showed that Lidocaine is a viable option to minimize pain at castration.

Dr. Law says this work will be of particular value to Canadian pork producers who process piglets over 10 days of age as both an anesthetic and an analgesic are required when castrating this age of piglet under Canada's revised Pig Code of Practice and Lidocaine is considered an anesthetic.

An industry summary of the research is available on the pork.org web site.

[Editor’s note: Lidocaine may not be approved for use in swine in all countries. Be sure to comply with all local regulations governing drug use in food producing animals.]