Lidocaine-infused castration bands

New castration bands containing slow-release local anesthetic provide pain relief for cattle during castration.

Large animal veterinarians in Alberta will soon be providing producers with anesthetic-infused castration
bands made in Canada. While producers currently inject pain relief or give it topically, a new process, developed by Solvet and Alberta Veterinary Laboratories (AVL), impregnates existing latex elastration bands with lidocaine.

“Providing pain relief during procedures like castration is important to animal health and welfare. Solvet came up with this technology to push lidocaine into the same castration bands that have been on the market for years and years,” explains veterinarian Dr. Roy Lewis. “We already had the lidocaine in another form, and the bands were already there, too. They’ve come up with the technology to combine the two, solely for the purposes of animal welfare. It’s quite ingenious really,” says Lewis.

The bands will address pain and discomfort through the slow release of lidocaine, which begins acting within two hours after the band is applied and lasts for up to 42 days, relieving the animal’s pain for the whole time the scrotum is falling off.

Calgary-based Solvet and AVL developed the new product, which has already been tested successfully
on hundreds of animals. “They are the same little green bands producers are used to and exactly the same applicators, so there is no redundancy and no new equipment required,” says Lewis.

The small bands can be used on calves up to 250 pounds to support bloodless castration without
injections, resulting in less steps and less handling costs for producers. Ongoing studies in the U.S. and
Canada aim to demonstrate increased average daily gain (ADG) while reinforcing the welfare benefits of the lidocaine-infused elastration bands.

“Farmers and consumers don’t want our animals to feel pain at any time if they don’t have to,” says
Dr. Merle Olson, who co-founded Solvet with Dr. Barb Olson. “Really, this is the future of cattle management; pain control and animal welfare are top of the list.”

Since the anesthetic-infused band, called LidoBand, falls under the category of compounding rather than
being a prescription drug, it will likely be available through veterinary clinics. It is expected to be available
in the U.S. market by the end of 2023 and in Canada sometime in 2024.

“It goes without saying that this will help cattle do better during this procedure. How much better we don’t know for sure, but the bottom line is it’s a pain control mechanism that supports animal welfare, and that just makes a whole lot of sense,” Lewis says.

This article was first published in Volume 3 Issue 4 of ABP Magazine (December 2023). Watch for more digital content from the magazine on ABP Daily.