What you need to know about the term 'live lamb cutting'

Let's talk about the new term "live lamb cutting", a sensationalised label intended to replace the established terminology of mulesing.

It's used in a report titled “The Broken Promise” released by animal rights groups, including the Australian Alliance for Animals, Humane Society International, and Four Paws.

It’s an interesting approach from groups who are purporting to be serious animal welfare experts and who are seeking a seat at the table with government in animal welfare discussions, to start making up terms.

If imaginative language is to start being employed, supporters might as well refer to mulesing as “lifetime lamb protection procedure”.

"Live lamb cutting" is a loaded phrase designed to attract attention and provoke strong emotional responses.

It has clearly been workshopped to try and be as dramatic and misleading as possible. The use of the word "cutting" implies a more extensive procedure than what mulesing actually is.

The report fails to provide the necessary context regarding the practice of mulesing, while also ignoring the widespread use of pain relief.

The 2024 Annual Report of the Sheep Sustainability Framework stated that while 57.7% of producers mules their Merino ewe lambs, a massive 89.7% of those producers use appropriate pain relief when conducting the practice.

While pain relief for mulesing is mandatory in Victoria, which was recently joined by Tasmania in making this a requirement, a nearly 90% voluntary uptake of any practice is impressive. This demonstrates that wool growers prioritise animal welfare.

WoolProducers Australia (WoolProducers) is urging other state jurisdictions to catch up to industry standards and legislate pain relief for mulesing.

By neglecting to address the rationale behind mulesing, the report misleads the public and undermines genuine discussions on animal welfare.

We encourage a rational and informed dialogue on animal welfare, one that is based on facts rather than sensationalism.

It is vital that discussions about animal practices remain grounded in reality, ensuring the well-being of livestock while addressing the concerns of the community.

These groups have removed any credibility they may have by making up terms and repeating lies and demonstrate that they have no place in genuine discussions about Australia’s livestock industries.

Ironically, our own industry also has a history of trying to be clever by using our own deceptive terms, such as breech modification instead of saying mulesing or changing the terminology of pain relief to analgesic/anaesthetic on the National Wool Declaration (NWD), because it was thought that the use of ‘pain relief’ implied that there was pain involved with mulesing.

Seriously anyone who tries to claim that mulesing doesn’t inflict pain is living in Disneyland, which is why in 2018 when a number of pain relief products became commercially available, WoolProducers changed its policy to call for mandatory pain relief application for mulesing as a way to show customers that we take animal welfare seriously, while trying to retain the legal right to mules.

Unbelievably at the time, and still to do this day, there are industry groups and so-called industry leaders who continue to rail against this policy – no wonder the animal rights groups continue to win on these issues.

At the end of the day, neither of these attempts to try and instill euphemisms into industry dialogue has assisted the industry and the perception of mulesing, in fact they have both largely backfired with our customers, and with regard to the use of the term breech modification, has exposed other husbandry practices such as tail docking to be lumped together with mulesing.

By not being upfront and having mature conversations about mulesing, we haven’t allowed industry to explain why mulesing is conducted in the first place, which is as simple as saying that mulesing is an effective once-for-life procedure that offers lifetime protection against breech flystrike, and when done with pain relief is one of the most effective animal husbandry procedures for delivering the highest standard of animal welfare that can be provided for the duration of the sheep’s life.

So, what can industry do to counter the ending live lamb cutting campaign and nip it in the bud before it has a chance to influence political decision makers? Maybe we can finally learn the importance of sticking to definitions and being transparent in what we do and why we do it.

While it is realistically too late to try and change the supply chain’s negative view on mulesing, we need to stop any regulatory intervention to end the practice. We also need to learn from the mistakes of how the issue of mulesing has been so poorly handled and ensure that other essential husbandry procedures that we rely on in Australia do not go the same way.

Jo Hall is the Chief Executive Officer of WoolProducers Australia.