Sheep receive less pain management than other livestock species despite experiencing similar painful procedures, and closing this gap is an achievable welfare improvement.
The sheep pain management gap reflects a welfare failure arising from the species' stoic nature combined with the economics of sheep farming, where individual animals have low commercial value relative to the cost of veterinary intervention. Sheep mask pain as a prey species survival strategy, leading to assumptions that they feel less pain or that their pain is less significant. Research refutes this - sheep subjected to painful procedures without analgesia show elevated stress hormones, altered behavior, and measurable physiological pain indicators. Providing meloxicam before castration or tail docking costs a small fraction of the animal's value but significantly reduces their suffering. The same principle applies to mulesing - local anesthetic before the procedure dramatically reduces acute pain. Closing the sheep pain management gap requires regulatory requirements for routine analgesia, farmer education about sheep pain biology, and veterinary willingness to prescribe analgesia for routine procedures.