This study evaluated whether fevernill, which is primarily composed of acetaminophen, vitamin C, and anhydrous citric acid, is effective in relieving stress caused by foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) vaccination in calves. Three-month-old calves from a farm in Korea were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 10 per group: control [untreated], group A [FMDV vaccination], and group B [FMDV vaccination + addition of fevernill 0.2% to feed for five days after vaccination]). Body weights, antibody formation, clinical symptoms, serum parameters were measured in the 14 days following vaccination. Total weight gain and average daily gain during the experiment period were group A (12.00±1.15 kg, 0.86±0.08 kg/day) compared to group B (13.57±0.98 kg, 0.97±0.07 kg/day) was significantly improved (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in the formation of antibodies against the FMDV vaccine between group A and group B, though the antibody value of group B tended to be higher than that of group A. The pre-inflammatory cytokine TNF-α value was 74.47±19.26 pg/ml in group A and 59.05±11.88 pg/ml in group B on the 5th day of the experiment, which was significantly lower in group B than in group A (p<0.05). Also, cortisol concentrations were significantly lower in group B than in group A (p<0.05). In conclusion, the feeding of fevernil is judged to be helpful in mitigating the side effects caused by FMD vaccination, and thus it is thought to be able to prevent the decrease in productivity caused by vaccination.
Newborn piglets are routinely subjected to several treatments shortly after birth, one of which is tail-docking. Tail-docking, which is carried out without an anesthetic when the piglet is 3 to 4 days old, is intended to prevent the severe injuries that can occur when pigs bite each other’s tails. The study was performed in slaughterhouses to determine how much tail-docking prevented tail-biting and how much it caused clinical problems such as amputation neuroma. One thousand pigtails were collected from 3 slaughterhouses in different provinces and tail length and tail-biting injuries were examined. Among them, 659 tail tissues were examined for clinical problems like amputation neuroma. The collected tails were divided into 3 groups according to the length of the tail, which was defined as long (n=136, 75% of the tail remained compared to the referred intact tail length of 30.6±0.6 cm of crossbred Landrace×Yorkshire dam×Duroc sire; LYD), medium (n=694, 50% of the tail remained), and short (n=170, 25% of the tail remained). The results showed that 4.3% of 1000 tails had biting injuries and 58.7% of 659 tails had amputation neuromas. There was no significant association between the tail-biting injury and tail lengths (p=0.953). However, the tail-biting injuries differed significantly by the province (p<0.001), and the frequency of amputation neuromas also appeared more frequently in longer tail lengths (p<0.001). The results indicated that tail-biting behavior was not influenced by tail-docking but might be influenced by the housing system and/or management practices.
There is a growing interest in animal-assisted intervention (AAI) all over the world. AAI is an umbrella term describing various forms of human-animal teams in formal human service, such as animal-assisted activity (AAA), animal-assisted therapy (AAT), and animal-assisted education (AAE). Animals commonly used as partners in AAI are dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs, farm animals, and dolphins. Research on various topics within the field of AAI has experienced rapid growth over the past decade, but AAI approaches are still struggling to establish credibility as a complementary therapy method for a range of medical and psychological conditions. The aim of this review is to scrutinize the research literature related to AAI. Most studies have shown that AAI can have multiple outcomes, including social, psychological, and physical ones, in a wide range of settings. However, studies have not yet examined whether these effects carry over into other contexts. Moreover, study samples have tended to be small, non-representative, heterogeneous, and conducted without control groups. Further research is, thus, necessary to explore the sustainability and long-term benefits of AAI in a variety of settings and for different populations. Also, there is a need for specific guidelines for the welfare of therapy animals, as well as possible directions for standardized professional competencies.