Anaesthetic for Tailing

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As your veterinary team our commitment is to serving your farming business with delivery of

efficient 24/7 veterinary services, sound advice and prescribing pharmaceuticals in a responsible and professional way. An essential part of our prescribing duties is to ensure pharmaceuticals are effective, safe and are applied correctly. The vet in your business is also an important science-based advocate for the farming industry. We have the important role of connecting farming practices to new technologies, updating on latest research and lead the implementation of welfare practices. New Zealand has its welfare codes and professional codes of Veterinary conduct. However, we have clients that are requested to adhere to a standard outside the jurisdiction of New Zealand.

To this end we have extensively evaluated the voluntary standard set down by the Textile Exchange for wool growers where “for all methods of tail docking and castration pain relief shall be applied when suitable pain relief is available” Textile Exchange RWS AW 3.9.1

The Veterinary Centre Sheep and Beef Cattle vet team have reached a position on the use of pain relief for tail docking and castration for the 2025 season.

1. We support the use of local anaesthetic use for ring castration of lambs. This works and when applied correctly lambs walk away without significant pain displays.

2. The mandated use of pharmaceuticals for tail docking is hard to justify. There are no clear or practical options that make a meaningful difference to the welfare of lambs.

This decision has not been taken lightly. We have consulted widely with other vets, farmers involved and have done extensive literature reviews on the subject. This stance is in-line with the New Zealand Veterinary Association position statement on the subject. We propose that our clients that have these requirements for their wool contracts get a waiver for the mandatory use of pharmaceutical pain relief application for tail docking. This can be achieved by the fact there are no suitable pharmaceutical options available for lambs.

We will continue to advocate for the use of local for castration. From our survey work the majority of farmers using local will use it again next year – EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO.

We intend to stream-line the certification and dispensation of local anaesthetic to livestock owners and managers. The process will be:

  • Contact the veterinary centre of your requirements

  • Join a regional training day to get up-skilled in improving animal welfare and the application of local anaesthetic. These are TBA before your tailing commences.

  • Fill in paperwork when local is used and we will audit this process after 2-3 months after the tailing season.

If a waiver to provide pain relief for the TAIL component of the RWS / ZQ Standard is not forthcoming, a risk-based assessment of whether anti-inflammatories can be applied correctly and without complications is to be carried out. The following criteria needs to be met:

  • Ensure lambs are settled, not stressed or dehydrated prior to administration.

  • Adjustment of dose according to weight.

  • Ensure subcutaneous injection only, and IM injection is avoided. No chance of double dosing, and avoid treating sick/diseased animals.

  • Ensure lambs are able to mother-up within 2-4 hours following the procedure.

  • Monitor for mis-mothering or ill-ness/side effects on a daily basis for 7 days following the tailing procedure.

We will continue to talk with growers and those involved with directing the Responsible Wool Standard to enable farms to continue to supply wool under these standards.