Anti-flystrike Clips
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If you are seeing this message, you made need to upgrade your Flash plugin, or turn on Java Script in your browser, or upgrade your browser itself (Internet Explorer, Firefox) so you can view our videos.Mulesing is the removal of strips of wool-bearing skin-folds from around the breech (backside) of the sheep. This practise prevents wool growth around the area, which reduces the risk of fly strike. It also reduces the amount of stained wool in the fleece and facilitates easier mating and crutching. Flystrike occurs when flies, attracted to the moisture and faeces captured inside the folds of the skin, lay their eggs in the breech. The maggots eat healthy flesh from the sheep, affectively eating the sheep from the inside. Flystrike costs woolgrowers more than $280 million a year in lost production.
Mulesing was designed in 1984 to reduce the amount of Flystrike. Yet the
practice, which is conducted without anaesthetic and leaves large open wounds,
has been criticized for its cruelty. Animal rights groups have campaigned for
less painful methods to be employed. Recently, the Australian Wool Industry has
pledged to phase out Mulesing by 2010. In response, more than 38,000 woolgrowers
have ceased mulesing in Australia and invested around $7 million dollars into
the research and development of alternative mulesing practices. In addition, the
wool industry has moved quickly into developing alternatives to mulesing. One of the newest commercially viable systems to be used are Anti-Flystrike Clips. These plastic clips act in a similar way to rubber rings used to castrate lambs. The clips are attached to the flaps of the sheep's skin so that the blood stops travelling to the area of the flaps and eventually causes the skin to drop off. The clips also draw the skin together and leave no open wound. They take 10 days to work and after 14 days the clip will fall off by itself.
Some growers argue that the clip is not a commercially viable option, as they will end up being littered over their paddocks. However wool innovators are already developing a biodegradable clip. In addition, recent trials have shown that these clips do not adversely affect the lambs unlike mulesing, which results in changes to animals' behaviour when they are fed, lying down, standing as well as physiological changes, which pose a substantial risk for the animals. The clips produce an area slightly narrower than the mulesing, as well as an average weight two kilograms heavier than their mulesed counterparts.
Other methods to prevent flystrike being developed by CSIRO and Wool Innovations include breeding bare, clean-breeched sheep and methods of tightening the skin through the use of photoactive chemicals. The long-term aim of the wool industry is to breed sheep that are wrinkle free.
To learn about the Anti-Flystrike Clips trials visit the Wool Innovations.
To find out more about the Australian Wool Innovation's (AWI) commitment to the mulesing free 2010, visit Road to 2010.
