Assessment of pain in goats after gastrointestinal surgery according to sedation protocol

Abstract

The study evaluated the effect of ketamine administered together with xylazine in comparison with the effect of xylazine alone on intraoperative and postoperative pain (both 2 hours and 4 hours) induced by rumenotomy in goats. Fourteen female Majorera dairy goats were assigned to two groups with seven animals in each group, designated according to anaesthetic protocol. Seven goats were injected with xylazine for sedation, and the other seven goats were injected with xylazine followed by ketamine during rumenotomy. Temperature in the xylazine protocol with ketamine had a significant decrease (p= 0,04378) compared to the xylazine protocol. There were significantly decreases in temperature at 2 hours (p= 0,0227) and 4 hours (p= 0,00146) postoperative. In this study, anaesthetic protocols did not have any significant influence on the respiratory rate (RF) of the goats (p= 0,1665). Heart rate (HR) did also not show a significant difference between the anaesthetic protocols (p= 0,8633), however, both protocols were significantly increased 4 hours postoperative, compared to preoperative (p= 0,006) and intraoperative (p= 0,0017) values. For mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) there was no significant difference between anaesthetic protocols (p-value = 0,2465). The pain scale adapted to goats included: increased HR, mental state, vocalization, dilated pupil, salivation, response to palpation, motor activity and posture. The goat pain scale is the sum of the scores of the above behaviours. The mean pain scores in the xylazine protocol were significantly higher (p= 0,02424) than those in the xylazine with ketamine protocol during intraoperative and postoperative times (2 hours and 4 hours). It was concluded that ketamine dosing released the intraoperative and postoperative rumenotomy induced pain in goats sedated with xylazine and ketamine, compared to the effect of xylazine as the sole sedative. In addition, the adapted goat scale can be used to identify goats with digestive surgery induced pain.