The dehorning of dairy calves: Practices and opinions of 639 farmers

摘要: Calf dehorning is a routine husbandry practice on dairy farms that justified by safety reasons for stockpersons and reduced risk of injures among herdmates. In Europe, the regulated law but little known about methods applied or farmers' attitude to practice. This study aimed broaden existing information in holdings processing results 639 farm questionnaires gathered traditional area northeastern Italy. Farm were stratified according herd size, type housing, productive purpose predominant reared breed(s). Chi-squared tests performed verify significant association between given opinion 3 classification factors, odd ratios calculated. The outcomes showed was carried out 80% surveyed farms, disbudding method reported all interviewed farmers. Hot-iron cauterization preferred (91%). On average, at 32 d age it more likely with ≥60 cows than smaller (OR=7.3). mainly personnel, intervention veterinarian far (OR=5.98) ≤30 larger dairies. Most farmers (70%) stated they had not received any specific training how perform disbudding. Fifty-two percent respondents causes prolonged postoperative pain (≥6 h) management rare. Only 10% used local anesthesia before cauterization, 5% provided calves analgesia. Consistent these results, indicated limited willingness pay cost analgesia call procedure. low motivation toward adoption practices able reduce related might arise from their insufficient knowledge long-term negative effects early painful experiences behavior handling heifers. Farmers favor keeping horned asked carrying dehorning. Aesthetic motivations (54% respondents) lack time (24%) main cited. Moreover, large majority (74%) no difficulty cattle.