At the end of a busy lamb marking season, many Australian sheep producers can feel satisfied that they have done a good job and reached new standards in animal welfare by using Numnuts.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
This is the world's first hand-held device that delivers targeted pain relief at the same time as ring application.
In 2021, a million doses of the anaesthetic NumOcaine were delivered to lambs across Australia, bringing the total since Numnuts' 2019 launch to 2.2 million.
Numnuts patented technology is a practical, farmer-friendly method for alleviating the pain suffered when lambs go through these essential procedures.
The tool enables an operator to inject NumOcaine local anaesthetic at the base of a lamb's testicle or tail before applying the ring in a two-step process.
The effect is rapid numbing that lasts for about an hour, which is the period when lambs experience a pain spike as blood supply is restricted.
The device is the brain child of Scottish design engineer and chief executive officer of Numnuts, Robin Smith.
He has a strong backround in farm animal health and was motivated to design a solution to the challenge of delivering pain relief at the right time during lamb marking, while not compromising on-farm efficiency or productivity.
"It had to be practical, safe and quick to use," he said.
Finding a simple solution took almost 10 years of research and development.
NumNuts is the result of a partnership between Meat & Livestock Australia and 4cDesign.
