Pain Assessment in Goat Kids: Focus on Disbudding

Simple Summary Disbudding is a routine husbandry procedure performed in goat kids in their first few weeks of life. Behavioural and physiological changes following the procedure suggest significant pain and distress to the goat kid, which is a welfare concern. Pain assessment is fundamental to implementation of effective pain treatment and/or management protocols. This review provides details on pain assessment methods in goat kids following different methods of disbudding. Commonly used pain assessment methods in other young farm animals were also included.Abstract Farm animals are routinely subjected to painful husbandry procedures for various purposes. Goat kids are disbudded to improve goat welfare and to ensure safety of other livestock, farm personnel, attending veterinarians and for various other production and managemental procedures. Disbudding is commonly performed on dairy goat farms, in kids under 3 weeks of age. Many scientific studies reported physiological and behavioural changes indicating pain and distress following disbudding, and this can be a significant cause of welfare compromise in goat kids. Recognition and measurement of pain is important to treat and/or manage pain and distress following painful procedures. This review focuses on pain assessment in goat kids following disbudding, using both physiological and behavioural measures. As only a limited information is available on the topic of interest, relevant studies in other young farm animals have also been discussed to compare the status quo in goat kids.