Colin -

The friendly brown faced Colin belies sheep’s instinctive fear of man as he curiously meanders up for a pat. Like all of the orphaned lambs that arrived at Edgar’s Mission in winter of 2005 Colin quickly learned that man can make a good surrogate as mum. Today the friendly Colin can easily be distinguished by folds of wool under his neck, a distinct clue of his Merino heritage.

The Australian Merino is the main breed of sheep in this country, accounting for around 85% of the national flock, with much of the remainder having a strong Merino influence. Today’s sheep have been bred to suit human requirements with most sheep bearing little resemblance to their wild ancestors. The merino has been bred specifically for its wrinkly skin and fine white wool. This has seen this gentle creature pay a huge price for while the wrinkly skin means more wool per sheep and thus more money for the farmer this unnatural overload of wool can cause animals to die of heat exhaustion during hot spells with the wrinkles also collecting urine and moisture. Attracted to the moisture, flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, and the hatched maggots may actually eat the sheep alive, this horrific condition is known as fly strike. If left untreated the sheep often suffer agonizing pain and die.

In the 1940’s a stockman by the name of Mr. JWH Mules developed a method of slicing off flesh (not wool) around the breech area (rear end) of lambs, hence the practice today is called mulesing. Lambs are held in a “cradle” and a pair of modified shears is used to cut a crescent- shaped piece of skin and flesh from each side of the buttock, and the sides and stump of the docked tail. After mulesing lambs can be seen to show abnormal behaviour, writhing and scuttling sideways like crabs, this is thought to be indicative of extreme pain and can last for 24 hours; some still show signs of pain after two days. Mulesing leaves a smooth scar that won't harbour fly eggs. However the dreadful wounds can get fly strike before they heal. Mulesing can also go wrong and lead to infection in the tail joints as well as twisted tails and can take 3 to 5 weeks for the wounds to heal. Mulesed lambs have been seen to suffer a setback in body weight gains for 10 days after the operation.

Fly strike is indeed a dreadful condition causing much pain, suffering and even death for the unfortunate animal, and while mulesing may go some way in preventing fly strike to the breech area it does not tackle fly strike to other target areas namely body, pizzle and poll. Combating fly strike in sheep remains one of the most controversial areas of sheep husbandary.