by Diana Reardon

Created on: March 15, 2008   Last Updated: March 20, 2008

The Australian wool industry seems on the verge of collapse. Norway has sought to legally ban the import of Australian wool from sheep considered to have been treated cruelly by mulesing.

Well, what exactly is mulesing?

Australian Merino sheep require some type of removal of wool from around their bottom area to lessen the chance of blowflies laying eggs in the moist,poo-stained wool. Once flies do lay eggs maggots emerge and the sheep becomes 'flystruck', which effectively means the sheep is slowly eaten away from the outside.

Sheep dying from fly-strike suffer a long, torturous death. They remove themselves from the rest of the flock to die alone and are often hard to spot by farmers checking their sheep.

If one is lucky enough to locate a sheep 'struck', it is quite possible to save its life by removing the wool from the affected area (cutting with shears or scissors) and treating with a chemical powder, spray or liquid. The sheep is then closely monitored until pronounced fit to return to the flock.

Now, to avoid this horrible problem for the poor old Merino, who is particularly susceptible to fly-strike in warm, humid conditions or after rain, (which hatches the blowflies), farmers have tried a number of options over the last 200 years.

One they consider to be the most effective is mulesing: when a lamb is about 2 months old a specialist team of farm workers, armed with a particular type of instrument, remove the skin from around the bottom of the sheep. Scar tissue forms and the wool never grows back.

With no wool there are less 'daggy' (poo-ey) bums and far less, if any, chance of flystrike.

The procedure takes a few seconds and causes the lamb to bleed. The stain of red blood is clear against the creamy fleece. Lambs usually recover quickly and are back eating grass within a short period.

If the lambs are not mulesed, farmers must be particularly vigilant during fly season and maintain an even more strict crutching program(shearing the wool around the sheep's bottom).

Mulesed sheep are also crutched to minimize the risk.

Okay, so that is what mulesing is and why it is done. Is it cruel? Well, the exercise is carried out with the best of intentions but I'm sure it would hurt the lamb, at least
initially.

The point is now not whether mulesing is cruel or not. Norway and the like are over that.
The point is to find a way of producing wool humanely to satisfy the animal rights activists but at the same time ensure the Merino actually survives the next summer.

Or, we could just do without wool as a product altogether? Use chemically-farmed cotton and synthetics made from petrol.

How do I know so much and why am I interested? My family run a wool-growing property and therefore I am a first-hand witness to many of these farming practices.

The issue, now in the international political arena, has now become a major head-ache for the Australian government and wool-growers.

Much of Scandinavia is trying to legislate to prohibit the entry to their country of wool from mulesed sheep. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have been influential in alerting countries to the practice of mulesing, supported by graphic footage from Germany.

Don't you think though, just as an aside, that a country who hunts and eats whales regularly is not in the strongest position to accuse other countries of inhumane treatment of animals?

Australia is now facing huge problems. First, they need to have some system of identifying wool from mulesed sheep or non-mulesed sheep.

Secondly, they need to hurry up with the breeding of bare bummed sheep!

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