In a move to minimise cruelty to animals, the Centre on Saturday notified the draft rules for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Animal Husbandry Practices and Procedures) Rules, 2020 pertaining to dehorning, castration, nose-roping, and branding to prohibit inhumane animal husbandry procedures and cruel methods used to euthanise animals.
The draft rules prepared by the Ministry of Animal Husbandry mandate using anaesthetics prior to castration, replacing archaic and painful practices such as hot branding with radio frequency identification, breeding hornless cattle instead of dehorning or disbudding, and applying behavioural principles of animal handling and restraining – such as the use of face halters, blindfolds, treats (like molasses, groundnut cake, or green grass), and verbal and physical cues like calmly talking to and gently stroking animals instead of roughly throwing them to the ground and tying their legs with ropes. The ministry has sought comments/suggestions for the draft rules in the 60 days.
Experts pointed to the use of hot irons, knives, or wires for dehorning animals, physical and chemical methods for castration, hot iron-branding for identification, and piercing of cattle septum by using iron rods, which caused tremendous pain to the animals.
Under the draft rules, the inserting more than one rope through nose; use of unnatural, abrasive or sharp materials such as nylon, plastic and others for nose roping; elastration (banding the body part using rubber rings; on scrotum for castration and on tail for docking) in adult cattle ; induced cryptorchidism (to prevent descend of testicles) and minor veterinary services carried out without the supervision and direction of a registered veterinary practitioner will be prohibited and considered as cruel activities.
The rules also require that euthanasia be carried out only under the supervision of a registered veterinary practitioner. As per the rules, dehorning and disbudding of an animal shall be done in blind folded and humanely handled before and during the procedure. “Administration of sedatives, analgesics and local anesthesia should be provided to animals under recommendation and supervision of a registered veterinarian”, the rules said. Branding of an animal shall be done through alternative identification methods such as ear-tagging, tattooing, freeze branding (cold branding) and use of radio frequency identification devices shall be preferred for identification of an animal.
Hot branding shall only be carried on dead tissues such as hoof in the case of horses or horn in the case of cattle. The depth of branding shall not exceed the 3/4 the thickness of the dead tissue of horn or hoof.
While nose-roping of an animal shall be done through use of face halter, blind folding, including offering treats such as molasses, groundnut cake and green grass, as well as verbal and physical cues such as calmly talking to and gently stroking, shall be performed for ease of handling and restraining of animal at the time of nose piercing to divert the attention of animal. “Sedative and pre-emptive analgesics shall be given before piercing the nasal septum; a sterile instrument for piercing the nasal septum shall be used under the recommendation and supervision of a registered veterinarian,” it said.
The rules prescribe euthanasia – “a good death” – for situations in which it’s cruel to keep an animal alive, as mandated by the PCA Act, 1960, or in which a massive number of animals are to be killed for the purpose of disease control, as mandated by The Prevention and Control of Infectious and Contagious Diseases in Animals Act, 2009, and they call for animals to be unconscious without enduring pain or suffering prior to the cessation of vital signs. Current crude methods include injecting chemicals that painfully stop the functioning of the heart and lungs while animals are still conscious, suffocating them to death in plastic bags, and burying or burning them alive, as was reportedly done in a few states during the recent avian flu outbreak.