This summary has been extracted from the application. A copy of the student’s Abstract/Thesis has not been received.
The aim of the project is to assess and compare various existing and novel analgesics for pain relief of routine husbandry procedures in Merino sheep using a multi-parametric analysis. The analgesics that will be assessed include injectable meloxicam (Metacam40, Boehringer Ingelheim), buccal meloxicam (Buccalgesic OTM, Troy Laboratories), a novel injectable sustained release formulation of meloxicam (Australian Custom Pharmaceuticals) and topical anaesthetic (Tri-Solfen, Bayer Animal Health),
administered alone and in combination with the various aforementioned meloxicam formulations.
The study will involve establishing a model of pain and inflammation in the sheep test subjects. Pain/ inflammation will be artificially stimulated via oil of turpentine, providing a mild inflammatory response in the front leg of each test sheep. There will also be a control group that will not receive any form of pain relief. Pain will be assessed using a multi-parametric analysis of numerous variables including behaviour, plasma/serum biomarkers, accelerometer data, infrared thermography and wound morphology. Pain will be assessed in both the acute and chronic periods following husbandry procedures. From these pain markers, we will be able to formulate and deduce correlations between the response prior to and after pain relief adminsitration against drug type, concentrations/ mixtures, and site of adminstration to determine the most effective and efficient mode of analgesics for pain relief in Merino sheep.