Numnuts is now available in Australia for use in lamb marking

Numnuts is now available in Australia and producers can provide targetted pain relief for as little as $1 per lamb.

Exciting progress: Director and developer of Numnuts Robin Smith with the device, and his father David Smith, the inventor of Barbervax, in Armidale last week.

TARGETED pain relief for use during lamb marking is now a reality, with Numnuts officially  launched  at  the MerinoLink conference in Armidale, NSW, last week.

The launch was the culmination of eight years’ work by Scottish firm 4cDesign in partnership with Meat and Livestock Australia, Australian Wool Innovation, CSIRO and Moredun.

Numnuts combines a hand-held rubber ring dispenser with an injection of local anaesthetic to the tail or testicles to alleviate pain when tail docking and castrating lambs.

The device starter pack costs $350 and can be bought online, with cost per dose expected to be 67 cents.

The anaesthetic, called NumOcain, has zero days withholding period, with a 100ml bottle containing 65 doses per bottle.

Numnuts director and developer Robin Smith, whose father David developed Barbervax and launched it in Armidale four years ago, said it would cost producers about $1 per lamb to use Numnuts.

“Every producer I’ve come across, they do want the best for their animals, but we looked at it from the perspective of the lamb first, it is about what is the humane thing to do,” Mr Smith said.

“We don’t take cats and dogs to the vet and expect them to be castrated without pain relief.”

Mr Smith said there wasn’t really an option for the acute pain lambs felt at castration or tail docking until now.

“Pain from the ring takes a minute or two to take hold... (and) after 15 to 20 minutes that is when the pain is at its absolute peak.”

Mr Smith said they originally chose finding a solution for elastrator rings because they are “bloodless” and would be looked on more favourably from an animal welfare point of view.

“Blood on farms, particularly with smartphones is a bit of an issue, retailers don’t want to see blood on farms.

“Generally we think 80-90 per cent of people are using rings anyway so we wanted to choose a method that was widespread already.”

The Numnuts device has been ergonomically designed to reduce strain, avoid needle stick injury and to ensure speed of application wasn’t affected, with contractors still able to mark 1000 to 1200 lambs a day.

Mr Smith said if there was good adoption in sheep, they hope to redirect some of the profits in to research and development for a similar product for use in cattle.

Numnuts is currently only available in Australia, but expected to be available in the UK and New Zealand from next year, with other countries to follow.

Mr Smith said producers would be given paperwork to submit with their National Wool Declaration.