Sorry, I don't plan on moving to Australia, I like upper Michigan just fine. I don't have any problems with the practice of mulesing sheep in Australia, if the sheep in question benefit from it, which is a decision that should be left to the farmer and not to the animal rights fanatics.
Any procedure such as mulesing, tail-docking, dehorning or castration causes stress to the animal, and even greater stress to the farmer that has to do the job, and therefore should be done only if there are benefits that counter that drawback. I castrate my male lambs routinely because I find it's a good idea for my flock in my situation--- I can run the male lambs with the ewe flock that way. Other farmers I know of wouldn't dream of castrating their meat lambs.
I haven't found any benefit to either tail-docking or dehorning of horned goats that would outweigh the (slight) risk and bother of these procedures. If others find that with their breed of sheep, in their location, tail-docking makes sense, more power to them.
What I have a problem with is when tail-docking has become such a sacred cow that they even dock the tails of sheep breeds that are not normally docked (such as Shetlands and Dorpers), or dock the tails of sheep too short for the animal's health.
nissa, I take my hat off to you. I agree with everything you have said here. Except the disbudding/dehorning of goats and cattle - goat yes I leave mine horned (except the dairy goats because I show them and they have to be disbudded) but the cattle we dehorn - causes too much bruising of the carcase if we leave them horned, and plays havoc with the prices we receive for steers.
I don't have any problems with the practice of mulesing sheep in Australia, if the sheep in question benefit from it,
which is a decision that should be left to the farmer and not to the animal rights fanatics.
Out of curiosity, what type of sheep do you have? We have quite a mix, a few left over superfine merinos, some first and second cross, some straight poll dorsets, some white suffolks, and using a border leicester ram over them all. Quite the oddball collection lol They of course all get their tails docked and the merinos are mulesed. I've just got into damaras and we will be putting a pure damara ram over all the wooled ewes, and slowing breeding up to a full flock of damaras, as we get the numbers we will sell off the wooled sheep. We will probably keep a pure breeding herd of damara but infuse some dorper into the main commercial herd to produce meatmasters.
