P.PSH.2057-Developing and implementing objective sheep lifetime pain measurement and mitigation strategies

Summary

Pain is an experience that we are currently unable to reliably diagnose or measure in livestock because of the inability to objectively measure it. In sheep production, acute pain is experienced when management procedures are undertaken. These include castration, mulesing and tail docking. However, the presence of persistent pain in sheep production has not been measured.

This project will identify new drug therapeutics that prevent chronic pain following sheep tail docking. In addition, sheep-specific biomarkers of objective pain state and the creation measurement tools that are able to reliably diagnose the presence of pain will be identified.

Objectives

The main objective of this project is to create:

• measures of pain biomarkers from the central nervous systems of lamb carcases
• cross species validation of the pain biomarkers following defined husbandry procedures
• evidence of a platform technology used to measure persistent pain biomarkers at line speed in lamb carcass processing facilities.

Benefits to industry

Targeted prevention, diagnosis and treatment of persistence of pain in sheep is critical, so there is a pressing need for tools that can objectively diagnose and measure pain in sheep, with associated innovations in pain mitigation.

This project will develop innovations in lifetime pain measurement and mitigation for sheep that will be designed for widespread adoption and directly lead to quantifiable gains in productivity.