Animal welfare concerns and public opinion are bringing focus onto the pain involved in piglet processing procedures, and the possibility of using analgesics for pain management. Pain control has not been widely used by producers because of the economic and practicality problems in administering one. This study looked at the effect of meloxicam (a NSAID) on growth, mortality, and pain control. 30 minutes before tail docking and castration (in males) 0.4mg/kg of meloxicam was given to half of the piglets, and a placebo given to the other half. Pain was measured by recording vocalization, observing behaviour in a sample litter for 30 minutes after processing, and recording cortisol levels at 30, 60, 90 minutes, and 4 hours post-processing. Growth was measured by weighing at processing, and again at weaning. Mortalities, litter size, and sow parity were also recorded. There was no significant difference in maximum vocalization amplitude between meloxicam or placebo groups during processing. From behavioural observations, the only significant difference was a decrease in isolation behaviour in the meloxicam group. Other pain related behaviours differed between treatment and sex. Baseline cortisol levels varied, did not have a normal distribution, and were higher in males. Cortisol levels increased during processing, and decreased by 49.4 nmol/L (P=0.06) after 60 to 90 minutes post-processing. The meloxicam treated group had lower cortisol levels by 49.4 nmol/L (P<0.001) after controlling for time and gender.Meloxicam did not have a statistically significant affect on the overall growth or mortality; although, it was found that litters of sows with parities greater than 5 did have reduced mortality. Overall, meloxicam had no effect on growth rate, mortality rate, or pain control during processing procedures when measured by vocalization. It did, however, provide pain control following processing when measured by cortisol levels and behavioral observations.