SOME see adversity, some see opportunity.

And for Australia’s 33,000 sheep farmers, the perhaps rash promise by the industry to phase out what animal rights activists claim is the cruel process of mulesing by 2010 is offering plenty of both.

Thousands of Australian sheep farmers are nowhere near ready for the transition.

Australia’s farmers were bemused in 2004 to find themselves at the centre of an international storm after the group People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals picketed upmarket fashion stores in Europe and the US.

They claimed that mulesing — the removal of skin from the backside of merino sheep to stop flystrike — was inhumane.

To some Australian farmers, this seemed nothing more than a joke. Flystrike, where maggots feed on the living flesh of the sheep, eventually eating the animal alive, is an ugly sight. Nothing could be crueller.

But thanks to selective breeding, go-ahead young farmer Ben Watts, 33, mulesed his last sheep on his property Waidup, outside Orange in eastern central NSW, in 2005. He said the reason many farmers had been slow to climb on the anti-mulesing bandwagon was because most of them had seen sheep die agonising deaths from flystrike and regarded PETA’s position as absurd. They resented the way change had been forced upon them by urban greens with no knowledge of the practicalities of farming. “Mulesing is not a job I liked, I don’t know any farmer that does,” Mr Watts said. “But all it involves is removing a bit of skin.

“It is done before the sheep are 12 weeks old and once it’s done they trot off to join their mothers. They don’t appear to be in pain.”

Still, the anti-mulesing deadline is looming and the industry has already spent more than $15million researching alternatives.

The industry’s research and marketing arm, Australian Wool Innovation, predicts 30per cent of lambs will not be mulesed this year, and most of those that are will receive pain relief. Farmers are also using clips, which gather up the skin that would otherwise be mulesed. Many, such as Mr Watts, have engaged in selective breeding and careful husbandry to protect sheep from flystrike.

Within a matter of weeks, AWI will introduce two new patented processes to replace mulesing. AWI chairman Brian van Rooyen said the treatments would offer “the completion of the range of alternatives that farmers will need to use”.

Details are still top secret but Mr van Rooyen said they involved injecting chemicals “that are benign and there are no adverse biological or chemical reactions”.

Mr Watts, who is completing a masters in sustainable agriculture this semester, was keen to put theories into practice. He has bred his merinos so that their bums are tight, lacking the skin folds susceptible to fly strike, and don’t require mulesing.

He also crutches twice a year and ensures they do not suffer from worms or other factors that can lead to fly infestation.

He markets his ultra-fine “non-mulesed eco-wool” to the Italian mills, and is doing well enough to have recently bought a second property.

Mr Watts said while there was no legal compulsion for farmers to stop mulesing by 2010, anyone who didn’t would soon be hit by market realities and find themselves selling wool for next to nothing to Chinese mills.

AWI relaunched the Woolmark brand last week, creating two new brands — Australian Merino and Superior Merino, to market to high-end labels such as Hermes, Gucci and Armani. The brands are being backed by a $120million marketing campaign.

Mr van Rooyen said whatever the rights or wrongs of mulesing, the question was being resolved by the consumer.

“It is not about mulesing any more. The modern consumer is looking for the eco-friendly, clean, green sustainable products. You ignore that at your peril.”

Credit: John Stapleton, Asa Wahlquist