Mulesing involves cutting crescent-shaped flaps of skin from around a lamb’s breech and tail. When this painful wound heals, it creates an area of bare, stretched scar tissue which has no folds or wrinkles and is less likely to attract blowflies. This makes mulesed sheep less susceptible to flystrike in the breech area.
What is flystrike?
Sheep, especially Merinos, have woolly wrinkles and folds in their skin, particularly around the tail and breech area (back and top of hind legs under tail), which can become moist with urine and contaminated with feces. Blowflies are attracted to this moist area where they lay eggs. Eggs generally hatch into larvae (maggots) within 12-24 hours and feed off the flesh of the sheep for up to 3 days— this is called flystrike, which, if left untreated, is fatal.
What is mulesing?
Mulesing is a painful procedure that involves cutting crescent-shaped flaps of skin from around a lamb’s breech and tail using sharp shears designed specifically for this purpose. The resulting wound, when healed, creates an area of bare, stretched scar tissue. Because the scarred skin has no folds or wrinkles to hold moisture and feces, it is less likely to attract blowflies. This makes mulesed sheep less susceptible to flystrike in the breech area.
Mulesing is usually carried out during lamb ‘marking’ when the lamb is between 2 to 10 weeks of age. Lamb marking may not only include mulesing but a series of other painful procedures that are all carried out at the same time: tail docking, castration (removing testicles in ram lambs), ear tagging, and vaccinating. In 2018-19, around 11 million Merino lambs were marked with the majority of these lambs being mulesed.
Mulesing is performed without anaesthesia, and pain relief is not always used. The operation is quick; however the acute pain is long lasting – at least up to 48 hours or from several days to several weeks. The resulting wound bed takes 5-7 weeks to completely heal. Mulesed lambs will socialise less, lose weight in the first two weeks post mulesing, exhibit behavioural indicators of pain including prolonged hunched standing and less time lying and feeding. The effect on gait and growth may be apparent for up to three weeks following the procedure. Following mulesing, lambs may avoid humans and, in particular, the person who carried out the procedure, for a period of 3 to 5 weeks. This avoidance behaviour is indicative of fear and the extent to which the animal experiences the procedure as aversive.
Both mulesing and flystrike cause substantial challenges to sheep welfare. Mulesing is a quick and effective method of controlling flystrike in Merino sheep, hence its popularity with producers. However, mulesing results in poor welfare both during and after the procedure.
What is the RSPCA’s position?
The RSPCA believes that it is unacceptable to continue to breed sheep that are susceptible to flystrike and therefore require an ongoing need for mulesing or other painful procedures to manage flystrike risk.
The RSPCA urges the wool industry to continue to invest research, development and extension effort into a comprehensive flystrike-resistant sheep-breeding program. On-farm extension to facilitate the rapid adoption of breeding solutions must be a priority for the wool industry.
The RSPCA urges retailers sourcing Australian wool to indicate to suppliers their intention to purchase only non-mulesed wool within the shortest possible time frame, noting that such wool should be sourced from flystrike-resistant sheep.
In the meantime, the wool industry must demonstrate progress in the adoption of improved management and breeding practices, i.e. a steady decline in the number of sheep being mulesed (or subjected to another painful procedure to manage flystrike) as a proportion of the total flock (Merinos versus non-Merinos).
