Welfare considerations for sheep managed in extensive grazing systems, including predation risk, lambing challenges, parasite burden, and the welfare advantages of pasture-based management.
Sheep welfare in extensive systems involves a distinctive set of challenges compared to intensive livestock production. The advantages of pasture-based management — opportunity for natural movement, social behavior, foraging choice, and fresh air — are genuine and significant. However, extensive systems create welfare problems that are harder to address through husbandry: reduced observation frequency means sick or injured animals may suffer longer before being identified, lamb mortality is higher due to environmental exposure and reduced intervention capacity, and parasite management is more complex without the controlled environment of intensive housing. Responsible extensive sheep farming requires high stockmanship skills, proactive health monitoring, appropriate pain relief for all procedures, parasite control strategies based on FAMACHA scoring and refugia management, and predator-deterrence systems that do not themselves cause animal suffering. The ongoing controversy over mulesing in Australia illustrates the complexity of welfare tradeoffs — a painful procedure reducing a painful death from flystrike, with alternatives emerging but not yet universally available.