Right: Singer Chrissie Hynde campaigns for PETA in Sydney. Background information
(The following background information has been drawn from two Internet sources, each essentially neutral.)VetMed Resource is a site designed to provide veterinarians and others working in animal health with access to the world's largest bibliographic database on veterinary medicine, the Veterinary Science Database, and a range of resources including review articles, databases, and news.
VetMed's treatment of mulesing can be found at http://www.cababstractsplus.org/veterinarymedicine/articles.asp?ArticleID=11790&action=display&openMenu=relatedItems&Year=2005
Wikipedia's entry on mulesing can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulesing
For further discussion of the issue from the two opposing perspectives see:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has a section of its internet site dealing with the treatment of sheep within the Australian wool industry. It deals specifically with mulesing and live sheep exports. These pages can be accessed through http://www.savethesheep.com/
The Wool is Best internet site is produced by The Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce. It has a subsection of its site that specifically argues against the claims made by PETA and defends the use of mulesing. These arguments can be found at http://www.woolisbest.com/animal_welfare/mulesing/index.html )
Mulesing is a procedure carried out on Merino sheep in order to prevent attack by flies. Merino sheep are particularly susceptible to flystrike as they have folds of skin around the perineum (the hairless area under the tail) which can become soiled by urine and faeces. Flies, particularly the Australian blowfly, are attracted to wool that is moist due to such contamination. The blowfly lays its eggs in the moist wool and the flesh-eating larvae can create significant wounds, causing the sheep considerable pain, stress, suffering and often, a slow death.
The Mules procedure, or mulesing, involves the removal of excess loose skin from either side of the crutch (or breech) of a sheep to reduce the incidence of blowfly strike. The wooled skin immediately adjacent to the naturally hairless skin above and on either side of the anus is removed.
While the lamb is under restraint (typically in a marking cradle), the wrinkled skin in the animal's breech (rump area) is cut away from the perennial region down to the top of the hind limbs. Originally, the procedure was performed with modified wool-trimming metal shears, however there are now similar metal shears designed specifically for mulesing. In addition, the tail is docked and the remaining stump is sometimes skinned. The resultant scars extend the area of wool-less skin so that faecal and urine soaked dags (lumps of matted wool and faeces) cannot accumulate at these sites. Consequently the risk of breech flystrike is significantly reduced.
For young lambs of about two months it appears to take some two months before the wound is largely healed. Current codes of practice ban mulesing for sheep over 12 months of age. Standard practice is to do this operation simultaneously with other procedures such as ear marking, tail docking, and vaccination.
The climatic conditions in South Australia and the very extensive farming systems used by sheep farmers mean that flystrike can be a significant problem. Blowfly strike is viewed as the major pest control problem confronting the Australian wool industry with average annual losses in the order of $150 million. Mulesing and other interventions, such as tail docking and crutching, are seen as suitable procedures to reduce flystrike. In Australia, 60-70% of the national Merino flock is mulesed.
History
The mulesing technique was developed as the result of a competition run in Australia in 1930. A prize was offered for the person who could find an answer to breech flystrike and the winner was John. H. Mules of South Australia for his method of skin removal. The practice of mulesing was not given formal approval until 1939.
Originally, mulesing was carried out on sheep after they were weaned because it was considered too rigorous a procedure to perform on lambs. However, lambs appear to cope with the procedure better than older sheep as the actual area of skin fold removed on young lambs is quite small, and they are protected for an extra year as well.