K-State Professor creates pain-relief solutions for livestock
MANHATTAN (KSNT) - A Kansas State University professor has created a new pain relief product for cattle with help from a local rancher.
John Irvine never wants to see his animals hurt. Thanks to research from K-State, Professor Hans Coetzee has come up with a game-changer.
“We feel tremendously proud of the impact that we've had on reducing pain in livestock," Coetzee said. "It inspires us to do more work in this area."
Coetzee has created a product called Banamine Transdermal, which is a solution people can pour on cattle. His new award-winning research measures how animals communicate distress and their responses to treatments.
"It's allowed us to detect very subtle changes in the animal related to pain," Coetzee said. "And also to detect whether the pain-relieving drugs are effective."
By measuring cattle's feeding patterns, Irvine is providing valuable insight.
"We are able to quantify the health and wellness of the animal," Irvine said. "How many times each of these animals visits the bunk and how long they're at the bunk. They develop a pattern and within that pattern, when they deviate from that pattern, there's a blip in the data."
These groundbreaking studies garnered attention nationwide. So much so that the National Academy of Sciences is awarding Coetzee in Washington D.C.
"It's a validation of the work my research group has been doing," Coetzee said.
He says his pain relief drug was approved and is now available to producers through their vet.
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