Pain in Farmed Animals: Understanding the Barriers to Mitigation and Improving Welfare
Course Details
This lecture has been RACE approved for 1.0 CE hour for veterinarians and veterinary technicians.
Program Description:
This course spotlights pain in farmed animals with an introduction to common causes of pain, including routine management procedures and disease conditions. It will provide an overview of pain physiology and the importance of targeted and multimodal analgesic protocols to safeguard animal welfare. Other topics explored include pain detection, analgesic options, the drug approval process, and extra-label drug use. This course will further investigate the barriers to on-farm pain prevention and mitigation and the associated welfare implications. The course concludes with a discussion on goals for moving forward to advance farmed animal welfare.
Agenda:
- Introduction to pain
- Common causes of pain in farmed animals
- Pain detection
- Why pain mitigation is critical to welfare
- Analgesia and the drug approval process Barriers to analgesic use
- Goals for moving forward
Learning Objectives:
- Gain a basic understanding of pain physiology and pathophysiology and how this relates to animal welfare.
- Learn about causes of pain in farmed animals, including routine management procedures and common disease conditions.
- Learn about the scarcity of FDA-approved drugs labeled for pain control in farmed animals and consequent extra-label drug use.
- Gain insight into the barriers to on-farm pain prevention and mitigation and how this impacts animal welfare.
- Explore how we can move forward to promote and implement preemptive and multimodal approaches to on-farm pain management to enhance welfare.