1. Introduction and historical perspective

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Flystrike is a serious health and welfare risk for Australian sheep, which has been the case since early 1900s when the Lucilia cuprina blowfly was accidentally introduced to Australia.

The L. cuprina blowfly lays eggs, usually in the rear end of sheep, which hatch into maggots hidden beneath the wool, and eat the sheep alive. It is difficult to detect early, causes severe suffering to the animal, and can be rapidly fatal.

In the 1930s, woolgrowers were faced with flystrike rates of between 60 to 120 per cent. In an attempt to control the problem, a surgical procedure called mulesing was introduced. It was highly successful.

In this procedure, a loose fold of skin is removed from each side of the sheep’s breech and tail. The procedure is performed once when lambs are young and are able to recover swiftly. The wound contracts to form a smooth scar, minimising the opportunity for blowfly eggs to hatch.

Once mulesing was introduced, and combined with the good animal husbandry practices described above, flystrike rates dropped to 1 to 3 per cent. Instead of being decimated, Australia’s fine wool sheep have survived.

Nevertheless, in response to welfare concerns for lambs undergoing the practice of traditional mulesing, the Australian wool industry has determined to introduce welfare-improved flystrike prevention practices and has a fast-tracked R&D and breeding program to achieve this.

An original target date to end mulesing by 2010 now appears unlikely to be achieved in absolute terms. However, strong progress to address animal welfare concerns has been made and continues with many woolgrowers having already replaced traditional mulesing with welfare-improved practices.

Australian Wool Innovation has in place a proactive, intensive and committed R&D program that is designed to remove the need for mulesing over time, and to ensure humane care of sheep in the interim.

A declaration system, called the National Wool Declaration (NWD), is now available, providing options for farmers to document their flystrike control practices through the wool auction selling system. Farmers are able to declare their wool as either non-mulesed (NM), ceased mulesed (CM wool comes from farms where farmers no longer practice mulesing) or pain relief treated (PR pain relief treatments are used for the mules procedure). This provides transparency and choice in the marketplace and is a product specification issue between buyer and seller.

For more information, download the Flystrike R&D Update Presentation - May 2009 (PDF 1.1Mb).