10 Facts About Live Lamb Cutting

What is this cruel practice and how can we protect lambs?

4/3/2025

Live Lamb Cutting (also known as mulesing) is a mutilation where young lambs are restrained on their backs, unable to move or to run away while their skin is removed with sharp metal shears.

This cruel procedure is done without anesthesia and often without adequate follow-up pain relief.
Live lamb cutting is primarily practiced in Australia, the largest wool producer for the global fashion market.

The Australian wool industry made a promise over 20 years ago (in 2004) to phase out the cruel procedure of live lamb cutting but has failed to act and effectively cost the lives of an estimated 140 million lambs.

Australia's lamb mortality rate surpasses the global average rate by 10% leading to over 10 million lambs perishing every year.
Live lamb cutting was developed in the 1920s to reduce the risk of flystrike in Merino sheep, who are bred for their characteristic wrinkly skin.
Merino sheep are bred for their characteristic wrinkles because they are thought to produce higher volumes of wool. Unfortunately, these wrinkles provide the ideal conditions for fly larvae to grow, and this makes sheep particularly susceptible to a painful condition called "flystrike."
Live lamb cutting is performed on approximately 70% of Merino wool-producing sheep in Australia.
There are pain-free and humane alternatives such as the use of flystrike resistant sheep breeds e.g., plain bodied sheep with no skin wrinkles, improved farming practices such as increased monitoring and crutching (shearing around the tail and between the rear legs of sheep), and the use of preventative chemical treatments.
You can tell if wool is sourced ethically by checking our Wear it Kind Directory or searching for a certification such as Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), NATIVA and ZQ Merino or equivalent.