Behavioral and physiological assessment of liquid nitrogen cryoablation to prevent horn development in dairy calves

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this series of studies was to evaluate the behavioral and physiological responses (experiment 1), the electroencephalographic response (experiment 2), and the efficacy (experiment 3) of cryoablation to determine if it could provide an alternative to cautery disbudding (DB) for calves. In experiment 1, at approximately 3\xa0d of age, 58 female Friesian dairy calves were allocated to one of five treatments: (1) control handling (CON, n\xa0= 11), (2) cautery DB (n\xa0= 11), DB plus local anesthetic (n\xa0= 12), DB using cryoablation (CR, n\xa0= 12), and CR plus local anesthetic (n\xa0= 12). Behavioral and physiological (complete blood cell counts and plasma cortisol concentrations) measures were recorded for up to 4 and 72\xa0h post-treatment, respectively. In experiment 2, at approximately 4\xa0d of age, the electroencephalographic response was recorded in 20 male and female Friesian-cross dairy calves disbudded using cautery (DB, n\xa0= 10) or cryoablation (CR, n\xa0= 10). In experiment 3, at approximately 4\xa0d of age, 274 female Friesian-cross dairy calves were enrolled from two dairy farms and each calf had one of two treatments randomly assigned to each horn bud: cryoablation applied for 10\xa0s (CR-10, n\xa0= 274 buds) or 15\xa0s (CR-15, n\xa0= 274 buds). At approximately 6\xa0months of age, calves were checked for scur or horn growth. In experiment 1, DB calves spent less (P