25 November 2025 - FOUR PAWS acknowledges Western Australia’s decision to mandate pain relief for mulesing (also known as ‘live lamb cutting’) as an interim measure to reduce suffering. However, let’s be clear: pain relief does not make live lamb cutting acceptable, nor will it satisfy brands or consumers demanding cruelty-free wool.

It is disingenuous for government and industry to present pain relief as the answer and to imply that current options provide adequate relief during the procedure. This is false and deliberately misleading.

• Even with multimodal pain relief, lambs feel every cut.
• Topical anaesthetics like Tri-Solfen® only act once applied to the open wound, meaning the procedure itself is performed without effective analgesia or anaesthesia.
• NSAIDs such as meloxicam, despite being administered pre-operatively, do not prevent pain during live lamb cutting because they only work once tissue damage triggers inflammation.

While multimodal approaches provide better post-operative relief, less than 10% of lambs undergoing live lamb cutting receive multimodal pain relief. Around 90% receive only a quick spray of Tri-Solfen® after the procedure, leaving them in pain for days or weeks without adequate post-care.

Over 21 years ago, the wool industry promised to phase out live lamb cutting (mulesing). The industry broke that promise. Instead of investing in the known solution- breeding plain bodied sheep they continued their reliance on live lamb cutting undermining market access, consumer trust, and Australia’s social licence to operate and causing 10 million lambs extreme suffering every year.

Global brands are clear: they want wool from sheep that do not require live lamb cutting - not wool from sheep that suffer less during live lamb cutting.

Pain relief is an interim measure, not a long-term fix. The only way to address flystrike and lamb welfare is:

• Breeding plain-bodied sheep that do not require live lamb cutting
• Implementing best-practice management strategies

As Fisher (2011) warned:

“It would be unfortunate if the partial success of currently available analgesic strategies… were to cause the wool industry and producers to lose focus from the ongoing and longer term selection strategies that will deliver lasting benefits.”

Global brands and consumers increasingly demand certified non-live lamb cut wool. Pain relief will not meet these expectations. For a premium product like fine wool, the welfare advantages of breeding sheep that thrive without being subjected to live lamb cutting are unarguable.

FOUR PAWS calls on the government to set a clear legislated timeline to end live lamb cutting. Pain relief is not a solution - it is a stopgap. The future of Australian wool depends on breeding plain bodied sheep that do not require live lamb cutting.