Mulesing - surgical removal of skin from merino sheep's breech area to prevent flystrike - has been a major welfare controversy, with industry facing pressure to transition to alternatives or use adequate pain management.
Mulesing welfare controversy reflects the difficult tradeoff between a painful procedure and the alternative - flystrike, which is itself a severe welfare condition causing intense suffering and often death. However, the framing of mulesing as necessary overstates the case: breeding programs, jetting (application of insecticide), and strategic shearing can effectively manage flystrike risk in non-mulesed sheep. The procedure's persistence is partly economic (mulesed sheep require less frequent flystrike monitoring) and partly inertia. The availability of pain relief (Tri-Solfen) means that where mulesing continues, performing it without analgesia is indefensible from a welfare perspective.