Analgesic Comparison of Flunixin Meglumine or Meloxicam for Soft-Tissue Surgery in Sheep: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The amount of scientific data evaluating sheep pain responses after analgesia treatment is limited. The aims of this study were to compare the efficacy of flunixin meglumine (FLU) and meloxicam (MEL) at relieving post-surgical pain in sheep and to evaluate the utility of the Sheep Grimace Scale (SGS). Thirty ewes were assigned to one of three treatment groups: oral MEL or intravenous FLU to manage pain associated with a laparotomy procedure, or a non-surgical control (CON) group. Behavior and physiologic outcome measures were collected pre-procedure and up to 48 h post-procedure. There were no significant differences in behavior, gait, degree of inflammation or pain around the surgical site when MEL and FLU sheep were compared, suggesting that both drugs provided similar levels of analgesia. Significant differences in behavior, gait, abdominal inflammation and pain were found when surgical sheep were compared to non-surgical controls. More work is needed to characterize the amount of pain relief provided by MEL and FLU. The SGS had moderate reliability between scorers; however, the results were inconsistent with the other study outcome measures. The SGS may have some utility as a pain assessment tool but should be used in conjunction with other pain measures.

Improving analgesia provision for sheep: An analysis of farm medicine records and attitudes towards pain relief on sheep farms in Northern Ireland

“…None are authorised in the UK and thus defined doses were not available, complicating comparison between the relative proportions of each product supplied and in determining the number of sheep likely to have been treated based on the volumes sold onto each farm. NSAIDs are recognised as providing some analgesia in sheep 4,18,26 . However, authoritative efficacy studies of NSAID use in clinical cases in the field are lacking 26 .…”

Surgical decompression of a paraspinal abscess in a 4‐month‐old lamb—Providing perioperative anaesthesia and analgesia within the remits of UK legislation for food‐producing animals

“…Butorphanol is the only opioid licensed for use in food‐producing animals (horses) and was prescribed according to the cascade for the lamb as part of a pre‐emptive analgesic protocol along with meloxicam and paracetamol. Meloxicam has an antinociceptive effect for inflammation and surgery in sheep, 15,16 but the antinociceptive effect of paracetamol in sheep is less established. Paracetamol may provide analgesia as part of a multimodal plan 17 and is widely utilised in in vivo studies 18,19 .…”

Assessment of pain associated with bovine respiratory disease and its mitigation with flunixin meglumine in cattle with induced bacterial pneumonia

“…For the study duration, right front force decreased as BRD progressed indicating that calves placing less force on their right front limb may be more painful. In a study examining gait following soft-tissue surgery in sheep, sheep who had undergone surgery placed less weight on their hind limbs compared with controls ( Viscardi et al, 2021 ). The hind limbs were nearest the surgical site supporting the idea that animals may place less weight on limbs in close proximity to where the animal is experiencing pain.…”