Cortisol response of dairy goat kids administered lidocaine injections, topical EMLA cream or meloxicam prior to cautery disbudding

Cautery disbudding causes pain, but is commonly performed without pain mitigation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cortisol response associated with (1) lidocaine compared with saline injections and (2) lidocaine injections, a topical mixture of lidocaine and prilocaine (EMLA) cream and meloxicam before cautery disbudding of dairy goat kids. Sixty doe kids were randomly allocated to 1 of 6 treatments: (1) a ring block using 1% lidocaine (DBLA) 20 min before disbudding, (2) saline injected (DBSA) 20 min before disbudding, (3) EMLA cream rubbed into the buds 1 h before disbudding (DBEM), (4) oral meloxicam 1 h before disbudding (DBMEL), (5) disbudding without pain relief (DB) and (6) handled but not disbudded (HAND). Blood was sampled to assess plasma cortisol concentrations at 20 and 5 min prior to disbudding to evaluate the cortisol response associated with handling and injections for DBSA and DBLA kids and at 5 min prior to disbudding for DBEM, DBMEL and DB kids. All kids were blood sampled 15 and 30 min post-treatment. There was no change in cortisol over time for HAND kids (P > 0.05). Cortisol of DBLA and DBSA kids was elevated above baseline 5 min predisbudding (after injections) (P ≤ 0.05), which was no different to cortisol 15 min post-disbudding (P > 0.05). DB kids had elevated cortisol above baseline 15 min post-disbudding (P ≤ 0.05). Cortisol was elevated from baseline for 30 min post-disbudding for DBEM and DBMEL kids (P ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, it appears that injections of lidocaine or saline initially caused as much pain as cautery disbudding, while not reducing the pain associated with disbudding. EMLA cream and meloxicam were not effective at reducing acute pain associated with disbudding. Further research on efficacious pain relief for cautery disbudding of goat kids is required.