The Impacts of Mulesing Alternatives on Sheep Welfare

Animal welfare is increasingly being scrutinised in Australia and one issue receiving particular attention is mulesing, the removal of wrinkled folds of skin around a sheep’s breech area to prevent blowfly and maggot infestation. This procedure is commonly performed without any form of pain relief. In the past, it has been justified on the basis of being a preventative health measure against breech flystrike. Its success as a flystrike inhibitor has resulted in widespread use and it is performed on 35 million lambs in Australia annually (Hemsworth et al., 2009). In 2004, the Australian wool industry announced that mulesing would be phased out by 31 December 2010 (Levot et al., 2009). We have almost reached this time limit and recent studies show that there are alternative methods in development with the potential to enhance sheep welfare greatly.