Restraining

of Farm
Animals
Prepared by
Dr Jahanzaib Chishti
Institute of Dairy and
Animal Sciences
UAF Faisalabad.
What is
Restraining?
Art to handle animals.

Humane and safe techniques to limit some or all of an animal’s

normal voluntary movement.

Types of Restraints

1-Physical 2- Chemical
Restraints Restraints
3-Psychological Restraints 4- Electro-
Immobilization
Purpose Of
Restraining
● Done for examination, collection of samples,
drug administration, therapy and manipulation.

● The method should provide least restraint to minimize

stress, pain, suffering and fear for the animal.

● Restraining is also done to ensure Human Safety.

● It ensures that you can safely examine your animal

without causing injury to animal or to you.
Precautions
during
Restraining
 Animals should be approached in a calm manner, avoiding
sudden movements, such as waving of hands and arms.

Stay alert at all times and observe the animal’s

response.

 Restrain animals properly.

W ear personal protective equipments.

Have an exit strategy.

Restraining of
Cattles
Techniques;
Various Methods are used for restraining of cattles depending
upon the purpose. Some of them are described below;

1-Haltering 2-Casting 7-Hobbles

3-Crush 4-Nose holder 8-Chemical Restraints

5-Drugs 6-Kick Bars

1-Haltering

1. Select 12’ to 15’ (feet) length

of half-inch, three stranded
rope.

2. Any type of rope from cotton

to nylon will do the trick.
However your choice
depends upon strength
needed, durability required
and price of the rope.
 Advantages Disadvantages
1-Rope Halter hardly weighs 1-Halter might get caught on an
anything since there are no object and injures the animal in
iron parts like buckles and some fashion.
rings for attaching your rope.
2-Halters must be placed
2-You can easily control animal. correctly otherwise they will do
more harm than good.
3-It is cheap, effective and easy
to use. 3-Too much pressure leads
to injuries.
 Before removing After halter is
halter. removed.

Injured Cow whose halter was cutting into her nose, was
saved.
2-
Casting
Refers to a technique in which we
use rope to make large animals lie
down and become recumbent, with
minimum efforts.

There are two methods of

casting; 1-Reuff’s Method

2-Criss-Cross method
Casting of
Cow
Reuff’ Burley’s
s
3-Front Leg
Hobble
1. In this method the front leg is raised for examination or
treatment.
2. This restraint can also be used to make a cow stand still and
to avoid her from kicking with a hind limb.
3. A rope is used to form a loop and the other end is passed
over the neck where it should be held by an assistant so that
it can be released quickly if the cow starts to go down.
Hobbles,
 5-Chemical
Restraint
1. Also known as “Psychopharmacologic Agents”.
2. A form of medical restraint in which a drug is used to restrict the
freedom or movement of a patient or in some case to sedate an
animal.
3. These are used in emergency, acute and psychiatric settings to
control unruly patients who are interfering with their care or
who are otherwise harmful to themselves or others in their
vicinity.
4. I.e Alcohols, Anti-depressant, Opioids, Anti-psychotics, etc
 6-Anti-Kick
Bars
● Having said that, i have
been witness to new heifer
almost destroying
parlours because they do
not like being milked.
● In these situations a kick
bar is really effective.
● Anti-Kick bars stop her
from kicking.
7-Cattle
Crush
Definition ;

“A strong cage for holding

cattle safely while they are
examined, marked, or given
veterinary treatment”.

A crush uses a current of 9

Volts so that animal does not
hit crush walls.
Purposes of
Crush
1. To hold an animal still to minimize the risk of injury to both
the operator and the animal.
2. Cow may be made to suckle calves in crush.
3. Permanent fixture in slaughterhouses.
4. Special crushes are made for special tasks, like
automatic scanning, foot-trimming, clipping the hair
under belly, etc.
Purposes of
Crush
5.A good crush will reduce
stress on both, thus ensuring
safer and more productive
environment.

6.Cattle restraints are

designed to divert attention
from where you want to treat
and prevent kicking and make
possible some special
procedures.
 8-Nose Lead
Technique
This Technique is majorly used to restrain male cattle kept for
breeding and beef purpose.

In this method metal ring is fixed between walls of nostrils which

contains sensitive tissues and restrain the animal from
unnecessary movements.
Restraining of
sheep
Techniques;

1- A well-trained 2- Sheep squeezing into a narrow

dog chute
 Restraining of
sheep

3- Holding a 4-Parting 5-Setting

Sheep Wool Up
 Restraining of
sheep

6-Hoof trimming 7- Oral examination

from, setup position . from, setup position.
 8-Shepherd's 9-
crook Gramble

Trimming of
hoof’s
 Restraining Of
Goat
There are many methods for restraining a
goat for examination, vaccination, or
veterinary surgeries.
1-Tagging;
Procedure
1- Control animal without stressing
them. 2- Hold kid between knees.
3- Use a chute a mature animal.
 Trimming of
Hoof
Procedure;
1. Hoof trimming best done in squeeze
chute, or by positioning or tying the
animal next to a wall or fence.
2. The person should face the animal
tail, leans down and picks up the
front leg at pastern joint.
3. For trimming back hooves, the hind
legs should be brought back straight
behind the goat.
Restraining Of Equidae
Family 1-Horse (Equus
caballus)
It is necessary to opt for the right restraining technique
for
Horses as they have different breeds and behaviours; such as
some are spooky while other are tame.

It is always better to approach them from left side, don’t

approach directly from the front.

There are three main techniques of restraining;

1-Physical 2-Verbal 3-Chemical

Physical
Restraints
1-Halter and Lead Rope

2-Chain over Nose and

Lip 3-Twitching with

hand

4-Twitching with Device

5-Lifting Limb and

Stocks
1-Halter and Lead
Rope
A Physical Restraint should never be attempted without a Halter
and lead rope with someone holding the horse.

Precautions;
1Never wrap around your hand,
arm or any other body part.

2Never tie a Horse unless you

know, it is accustomed to being
tied.
2-Chain over Nose and
Lip
Chain over nose Chain over Lips are more severe,
provides, additional often applied on breeding
control. Stallions
3-Twitching with
Hands
Hands are used to twitch the horse for
restraining, it can be either;

Neck Ear Nose

Twitch Twitch Twitch
4-Twitching with
Device
a) Never let go of twitch
because, it can injure you or
the horse.

b) Size Counts-the longer the

twitch,the more control you
have.

c) Do not leave twitch for too

long it can damage your
horse.

d) Never put switch device on

5-Lifting Limbs and
Stocks
1. Lifting a limb may be helpful to allow
examination of weight-bearing limbs.
Use with caution Horses are stronger
than you.
2. Stocks are really helpful for renal
exams and reproductive evaluations.
3. But they are not foolproof- Horses
may try to jump out or go down.
Restraining of
Donkey
Donkeys are also restrained like horses by using many
techniques, some of them are mentioned below;

1-Knots

2-

Halter

3-Head-Collar

4-Chin-Holder

5-Blind
Holding &
Restraining
Technique
 Correct chook handling of techniques
Poultry.
1) To handle a hen you need to be calm & sensible.

2)To catch it you need to try carefully and quickly grab hold of it
by the legs and body.
3)Once you have the bird hold it by putting your middle finger in
between its legs and squeeze the legs so the chook doesn’t go
flying away.

4)Stroke your hen gently with your other hand. To put the hen
down simply make sure its feet are touching the ground and
reverse the catching process.

5)If your hen goes crazy do not panic just firmly hold onto your
hen. If you feel scared while holding your hen don’t worry your
confidence will grow and the hen will quiet down over time.
Restraining of
Camels
1. Camel have been domesticated for
thousands of years and are easily
managed if accustomed to handling
by people.
2. The camel is able to kick or strike
in any direction,
3. Thus the camel should be
maintained in sternal recumbency,
kept within stocks or hobbed to
limit the swing of the leg.
Restraining Of
Camel
Techniques;
There are two main types of

restraining; 1-Physical Restraining

2-Chemical Restraining
1-Physical Restraining
Physical restraint is further divided
into sub-techniques, which are
following;
1-Halter 2-Body
harness
3-Nose
Plugs 4-Stocks
5-Hobbles
 a-Rope
1.Halter
Halters consist of a strong rope halter.
2. A traditional nose guard is used to protect
camel eyes.
3. Homemade rope halter is primarily
used for restraining young camels, while
use of nose-peg and nose-rings are
common techniques used in adult
animals.
4. Rope halters are ideal for training
camels, expedition work,
commercial operations and riding.
2-Chemical
Restraining
Chemical Sedation utilizes the
same drugs as used in cattles,
buffalos, and horses. With special
considerations for dosages.

For Examples;
Xylazine, Butorphanol,
Detomidine,
Meditomedine, etc.
Advantages of
Restraining
 Prevent from injury

Safety for animal and

holder

Maintain health

Proper control for

trainers

W e get work from

Disadvantages of
Restraining
 Some equipments can cause serious injuries to the animal.

Unprotected equipment can results in transfer of many diseases

that can affect the meat and milk production of the animals.

During restraining if animal get hyper it can also cause serious

injuries to the restrainers

If we do not restrained the animal during slaughtering it can

cause serious damage to the person controlling it
References
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286714471_Restraint_and_handling_of_camels
https://camelconnection.com/product/camel-halter
http://vetstudentresearch.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-stop-cow-from-kicking-using-anti.ht
ml
http://vikaspedia.in/agriculture/livestock/cattle-buffalo/restraining-cattle-and-buffalo
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