Welfare considerations for sheep in extensive rangeland systems, including predation risk, extreme weather, and the challenges of managing large mobile flocks.
Extensive rangeland sheep farming offers benefits — space, freedom of movement, and social grouping — but also poses distinct welfare challenges. Animals may go weeks without close human observation, meaning illness and injury can go undetected. Flystrike, a painful condition caused by blowfly larvae burrowing into skin, can cause death within days without intervention. Mustering events, often involving helicopters and dogs on large properties, are highly stressful. Welfare improvement in extensive systems requires better monitoring technology, more frequent veterinary contact, and alternatives to the most painful management practices such as mulesing.