Date of Award

2020

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Animal Sciences

Department

Animal Sciences

College

Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources

Faculty Advisor

Schauer, Christopher

Description

Our hypothesis was that administering Flunixin Meglumine (FM) to lambs that were both rubber ring castrated and docked or surgically castrated and emasculator docked would decrease behavioral stress, serum cortisol, haptoglobin concentration, and wound and swelling score, but increase average daily gain. Rambouillet ram lambs (n = 181) were allocated with a completely randomized design in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Treatment combinations included rubber ring castration and docking (on ram lambs with administration of saline or FM) or surgical castration and emasculator docking (on ram lambs with administration of saline or FM). Ram lambs were castrated at 12.5 ± 5.5 days of age. Overall, results indicate that the method of castration and docking in lambs affected short lived behavioral and physiological stress. The administration of FM surgical castration following castration decreased cortisol levels after 140 minutes. Economic analysis showed that rubber-ring castration was the cheaper method.

Rights

NDSU policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0001-7208-7385

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/32275

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