Here’s what registered veterinarians have to say about mulesing and tail docking.

Collective Fashion Justice asked two registered veterinarians to share their thoughts on the painful standard practices sheep in the wool industry face, and compare these to standard operations performed on companion animals like dogs and cats.

First, we spoke to Dr Robert Gropel, who runs his own veterinary hospital and has been awarded advanced practicioner membership in Small Animal Medicine with MANZCS. Dr Gropel has 20 years of experience as a veterinarian:

Here, Dr Gropel compares the practice of mulesing to suturing a wound in a dog:

“Mulesing is the removal of a strip of skin from around the bottom of a lamb at between 2-3 months of age. If we were to perform a similar procedure in a puppy it would be as follows:

1. Give an injection of morphine or methadone and a sedative to make the puppy less scared and anxious.

2. Place an intravenous catheter and infuse saline throughout the procedure to protect the organs.

3. Give an anaesthetic in the vein to put them to sleep and place a tracheal tube to provide oxygen and gaseous anaesthesia to ensure they don’t feel the pain of the procedure.

4. Clip the hair away and clean the skin thoroughly with an antiseptic to prevent infection.

5. Wear sterile gloves and use sterile drape and sterilised instruments to help prevent infection.

6. Remove a large flap of skin from either side of the bottom leaving exposed the underlying fat and muscle.

7. Place a sterile bandage to protect the wound from dust and debris and insects.

8. Administer an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic injection for pain relief and to prevent infection. Both injections last 24 hours. Additional pain relief would be in the form of a fentanyl patch which would provide slow release morphine-like pain relief for 3-4 days.

9. The wound bed will take up to two months to scar and heal. Bandage changes would be daily for 5 days, then every second day for 10 days then once to twice weekly.

10. Oral pain relief would be administered for up to two months depending on how long it would take the wound to heal. Antibiotics administered for 2 weeks minimum.

If a veterinarian were to perform this surgical procedure in a conscious puppy as it is performed in a baby lamb, they would have to hold the animal down with the help of an assistant while slicing a large flap of skin from either side of its tail using non sterile shears. No doubt the puppy would scream in pain. The vet might give an anti-inflammatory injection that would provide analgesia for 24 hours only and leave the wound to heal over the next two months without wound care risking infection and maggots. This vet would no doubt lose their licence if they performed a procedure in this manner on a conscious domestic animal.”

So we’ve seen how a practice like mulesing would take place at a veterinary clinic, should the practice be needed for the health of the animal. Now, let’s see how mulesing is really practiced:

Two forms of pain relief are applied here, bucalgesic, prior to the mulesing, and Tri-Solfen, afterwards (in the form of a spray). Pain relief is not mandatory for mulesing in Australia outside of Victoria, and in Victoria, it is most common to only use Tri-Solfen after the fact.

Clearly, not enough effort is taken to avoid pain and suffering for sheep. What’s more, these painful mutilations only occur in the wool industry for the sake of profit, asmulesing only occurs due to the issue of flies laying their eggs in the folds of skin merino sheep have, and these folds of skin have been selectively bred into sheep, so that more wool is produced, and more money is made. No matter the cost to the sheep.

Why aren’t sheep provided the same sort of pain relief as companion animals?

To properly answer this question we need to talk about speciesism, the discrimination of individuals based on their species membership. For now, we spoke to Dr. Belinda Oppenheimer BVSc (Hons) MANZCVS - Veterinarian. Dr Oppenheimer wrote:

”The choice of pain relief for different species undergoing surgical procedures is often not grounded on differences in pain perception, but rather human practicality. A surgical procedure as invasive as mulesing in a companion animal such as a dog would require general anaesthesia, ideally local anaesthesia prior to the surgery taking place, and a course of follow up pain relief. In lambs undergoing mulesing, they are afforded no general anaesthesia given the impracticalities of this to the farmer.

Pain relief of any sort has only been mandated in the Australian state of Victoria since 2020. The same local and post-operative pain relief agents, such as bupivicaine and meloxicam, are used in both species, highlighting that despite physiologically responding the same way to surgical pain, these animals are treated remarkably differently, with clear discrepancies in welfare priorities.

The pain associated with mulesing in lambs should have no place in a modern, welfare-centric society. Continued advancements need to be made in order to ultimately relegate this procedure to a thing of the past.”

But let’s keep talking about pain relief.

We should not accept the mutilation of sheep, but as it exists today, we need to talk about whether or not the pain relief provided to sheep is enough. We can tell from footage of mulesing and tail docking that sheep are in distress and pain. We also know from research on the medications used, that they cannot ensure protection from pain.

To understand this properly we spoke to Dr Clive Phillips, who has been a professor of animal welfare, Chair of the Queensland government’s Animal Welfare Advisory Board, and author and editor of 9 books and over 150 articles on animal welfare and management in scientific journals.

Dr Phillips sent Collective Fashion Justice a report compling literature on the pain relief used in the above footage, and made the following comments to us:

“What is clear is that when combined together the two treatments give partial, but not complete relief from the pain caused by mulesing, which lasts several days. The same would be expected for protection from the pain of tail docking, but there is little written about this.

It is also clear that the individual treatments of Trisolfen or Meloxicam do not always provide any relief, which is to be borne in mind in relation to the high takeup of a single dose of Trisolfen being alone given, reported in 2015 to be high in all Australian states except Queensland.”

We cannot accept the mutilation and slaughter of sentient animals for profit.

There are so many alternatives to wool which are more ethical and sustainable. We cannot accept the mutilation and slaughter of sentient animals for the sake of fashion, for the sake of profit.

If you agree, please help us to make steps in the right direction for sheep, as we work to ban mulesing.