Sheep in Australia
The sheep industry in Australia
(To see references for this document you can click on any of the reference numbers in the text).
In 1998 there were just under 120 million sheep in Australia. Numbers decreased from 180 million in 1990 after the wool market declined ( 1 ). Around 75% of all sheep are Merinos, bred for their fine wool, but also slaughtered for meat.
Almost one-quarter of all sheep are run in the so-called pastoral zone, that is, the arid and semi-arid inland areas. Summer temperatures are high, rainfall is low, and the area is prone to drought. Sheep often eat saltbush and bluebush rather than pasture. They have been described as semi-feral because they wander over large areas and have only infrequent contact with humans.
The majority of sheep are kept in the sheep-wheat and high rainfall zones, where rainfall is higher, but droughts can still occur. Fewer Merinos and more crossbred sheep are kept in the wetter areas. In these areas farmers may also breed prime lambs, that is, young sheep intended only for meat, not wool ( 2 ).
The climate in areas where sheep are kept varies widely. It ranges from very hot and dry conditions in inland areas, to very cold conditions in the NSW highlands. Both extremes cause welfare problems for sheep.
Most sheep don't get a lot of attention from farmers. About two-thirds of the national flock is on properties with over 2000 sheep, so the individual animal is unlikely to be closely inspected, given help with difficult births, or hand-reared if the mother dies ( 3 ).
Death in the sheep industry
There is a widespread myth that sheep are well suited to the
extreme climates in Australia. For example, an article in National
Geographic stated:
"
Inhospitable to man but well suited to
Merino sheep, Australia's Nullabor Plain supports vast ranches, such
as 4000-square-mile Rawlinna Station, with 40 acres for each animal,
those Merinos survive well on sparse vegetation and salty water
"
(
4
).
Similarly, an article in a rural newspaper claimed:
"
Even
though it is an environment of changing seasons with blistering heat,
freezing cold, droughts and floods, and a thin layer of infertile
soil, it is entirely suited to our hardy sheep-mostly Merinos, of
course
" (
5
).
The fact is that of all the animals introduced to Australia, the sheep is the only one that has never become feral because it can't survive on its own. Even with human care, such as it is, there is a high death rate among sheep and lambs.
In
the 5 years from 1982-1986, an average of 6.2% of adult sheep each
year died in the paddock Australia-wide. This is suffering on a
massive scale, ranging from 6.3 million dead sheep in 1986 to a high
of 13.1 million in 1983, a drought year (
6
).
These are not sheep dying of old age -- they are sold for slaughter
long before they are old. These are sheep in their prime.
More recent surveys in particular areas have found similar death rates, around 7% a year for ewes (female sheep) in Queensland and Victoria, but a massive 21% for rams in Victoria ( 7-8) .
Lamb deaths are even higher. Around 20% of all lambs within weeks of birth, which means 11 million lambs a year don't survive their first few weeks of life ( 9 ). The death rate can be over 50% in bad seasons ( 7 ) and is usually 30-40% for twins ( 10-11 ).
One researcher has written: " Under most Australian conditions, losses in the field of about 15% of lambs born ...seem to be unavoidable " ( 9 ).
These conditions include paddocks where there is often little shelter, minimal assistance with lambing, and a climate which can be extreme.
Causes of death - adult sheep
Flystrike
Up to 3 million sheep a year die of flystrike ( 12 ). The sheep blowfly Lucilia cuprina lays her eggs on moist areas of the sheep. When the maggots hatch, they eat into the flesh of the living sheep. The maggots are extremely irritating to the sheep, who stop eating, lose weight, develop a temperature, and eventually die of ammonia toxicity produced by the maggots.
Lambs are mulesed to reduce flystrike around the buttocks (see the section on mutilations). However, mulesing doesn't stop flystrike on the body, or around the horns and penis sheath of rams. Chemical sprays are used to prevent or treat flystrike on the body, but obviously a lot of sheep still suffer and die.
Lambing problems
Ewes can die during a difficult birth. They are given very little assistance by farmers, especially in the pastoral zone.
Ewes can also die from poor nutrition in the late stages of pregnancy. Pregnancy toxaemia is when blood glucose levels drop sharply because the sheep isn't taking in enough nourishment for the growth of her lamb(s). The ewe can become blind, unable to stand, and eventually lapses into a coma and dies.
A rural newspaper pointed out that hundreds of ewes died of pregnancy toxaemia in South Australia because farmers weren't aware that cereal stubble wasn't sufficiently nutritious, and weren't checking the condition of their sheep ( 13 ).
Adverse weather
Newly shorn sheep are very sensitive to cold weather, especially when combined with rain and strong winds. When they don't have good shelter, large numbers die. An estimated 1 million sheep die in the 30 days after shearing ( 6 ).
The following are some examples from specific areas:
In January 1982 in the Narrogin-Darkan area of Western Australia, 14,500 sheep died within a month of being shorn. An estimated 100,000 sheep died across the south-western corner ( 14 ).
In December 1982 in eastern Victoria, 50,000 sheep died during a cold snap ( 6 ).
In November 1987, gales and heavy rain killed 30,000 newly shorn sheep in the western district of Victoria.( 6 )
In January 1990 in the Avon Valley in Western Australia, 11,427 sheep, one-quarter of those shorn in the area, died of exposure ( 15 ). In February 1990, there were 11,000 sheep deaths in Victoria due to a cold snap ( 16 ).
These are only a few dramatic examples, but sheep die regularly during cold, wet and windy weather in many regions of Australia. The survival of shorn sheep at such times can be increased by the use of sheep coats, even coats that are made quickly from industrial garbage bags ( 14 ).
Natural disasters
While natural disasters may seem like an act of God, the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare commented: " Droughts, floods and fires ravage the Australian landscape irregularly but frequently, such that they must be considered an inevitability for the landowner and be planned for accordingly " ( 3 ).
Such plans include maintaining fire breaks around sheep paddocks, and conserving feed for use during droughts and floods.
In the 1982-3 drought, there were 769,000 sheep deaths in Victoria alone between September and March ( 6 ). Many of these were due to inadequate feed. Officers from the Department of Agriculture had to shoot 160,000 unwanted sheep rather than allow them to starve ( 3 ).
In the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in south-eastern Australia, 334,500 sheep burned to death. Sheep are not always killed by bushfires-they may be still alive in a badly burned condition. In the pastoral zone in particular it may take some time for a farmer to find all burned sheep, during which time they suffer terribly. The Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare commented: " The Committee is concerned that in the thinly settled pastoral zone, and particularly following an extensive fire, sheep must frequently linger unaided until death supervenes " ( 3 ).
Causes of death - lambs
About 80% of lamb deaths are due to starvation and exposure ( 9 ). The lamb needs a rich supply of milk soon after birth. There are fewer deaths when ewes are well fed and have a good milk supply ( 17 ). For example, lamb survival to weaning was 10% higher when ewes were given good quality hay after lambing ( 18 ).
There are also fewer lamb deaths when ewes have a sound udder. It is shocking that up to 20% of ewes have shearing damage to the teats ( 9 ), obviously causing pain to the ewe and preventing the lamb from suckling properly.
Planting shelter belts of tall grasses increases lamb survival, especially during adverse weather ( 19 ). Ewes are more likely to make use of this shelter for lambing if they have recently been shorn. However, they can be shorn 7 weeks before lambing and will continue to use the shelter once they have learned to do so, reducing lamb deaths by half ( 20 ).
In hot areas, sheep must have access to shade, since hyperthermia during pregnancy leads to lower birth weights, and in lambs can produce dehydration ( 9 ).
The 20% of lamb deaths apart from those due to starvation and exposure are due to infections, birth injuries and predators. Overall only 2-5% of deaths of healthy lambs are due to predators such as wild pigs, dogs, dingoes and crows. Predators may be blamed for more deaths than they actually cause because they eat lambs who have died of other causes, and they kill non-viable lambs who would probably die anyway ( 9 ).
Handling and surgical interventions
Mulesing
The
mulesing of lambs involves cutting a crescent-shaped slice of skin
from each buttock, and stripping the skin from the sides and end of
the tail stump. When the wound heals, it produces a large scar free
of wool and skin wrinkles, which is less attractive to the blowflies
that cause flystrike. An estimated 80% of Merinos are mulesed, as
well as smaller percentages of other breeds. While mulesing reduces
flystrike on the buttocks, it does nothing to reduce flystrike on
other parts of the body.
A bleeding wound like this, without any anaesthetic, is obviously very painful. Cortisol (stress hormone) levels more than double within 15 minutes of mulesing, and levels of -endorphin (natural pain killer) increase more than 8-fold. After the initial shock of the skin being sliced off, the endorphins may provide some short term pain relief. However, after 24 hours endorphin levels are back to normal, whereas cortisol levels are still twice as high in mulesed as in unmulesed lambs ( 21 ).
Lambs also show through their behaviour that they are in pain. After a short period of normal behaviour, they stand with their head down, nose almost touching the ground, back arched and body hunched. When they move, they have a short, mincing gait. This abnormal behaviour continues for 3 days. Lambs continue to strongly avoid the person who mulesed them for 37 days ( 22 ).
Research is progressing on a vaccine against flystrike ( 23 ). Substantial government funding is still required to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine, which obviously has the potential to dramatically improve sheep welfare, by both eliminating flystrike and mulesing.
Another surgical intervention against flystrike is pizzle dropping, which involves cutting the tissue between a male sheep's belly and penis sheath. The aim is to make the pizzle hang more vertically so that the belly wool doesn't become urine stained. Pizzle dropping isn't widely practised, and would also be eliminated by a vaccine.
Castration and tail docking
The tails of all lambs are removed, mainly to reduce the urine and faeces staining which attracts sheep blowflies. Tails are either cut off with a knife, or made to drop off by applying tight rubber rings. Most male lambs are castrated at the same time to stop fighting and unwanted pregnancies, as well as to avoid a ram taint to their meat. Again rings or a knife are used. A tight rubber band is placed around the top of the scrotum, or the bottom of the scrotum is cut and the testes squeezed out.
After rings are applied, lambs bleat, stamp their feet, kick and roll on their back. They lie on their back, neck extended and hyperventilating ( 24 ). After surgery they stand in a huddled position with back legs splayed. They move more slowly and show less social and exploratory behaviour ( 25 ). Obviously these mutilations cause distress to the lambs.
Both the ring and the knife method raise stress hormones in the
blood. However, the knife raises levels more, and they are still
raised after 24 hours (
25-26
). As one
study described:
"
In knife lambs, high incidences of
abnormal standing/walking and markedly elevated plasma cortisol
concentrations persisted throughout the first 4 hours after
treatment, suggesting that this distinctive behaviour was linked to
marked distress in lambs treated in this way
". (
27
)
To stop the pain of these mutilations for at least the first 2 hours, local anaesthetic has to be injected 15-20 minutes before rings are applied to the tail and/or scrotum. Since farmers would not want to wait so long when handling the lambs, a study has shown that a lignocaine injection into the scotal neck 15 seconds before applying rings reduces the cortisol responses by 43%. Cortisol levels still rise, indicating that lambs are still feeling some pain, but at least the pain is reduced. ( 28 )
Apart from immediate pain, there are probably also long term effects of tail docking because neuromas grow in the tail stump. These abnormal knots of nerve tissue are associated with chronic pain in human amputees ( 29 ).
There are ongoing experiments in South Australia to breed sheep with naturally short tails ( 30 ), which is obviously a big advantage over surgically removing tails. The Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare recommended continued research into the CSIRO's immunocastration, where a vaccine is injected into males to immunise them against their own hormones. The injection stops the undesirable behaviour of rams without the pain of surgery ( 3 ).
Shearing
Shearing may seem like little more than getting a haircut. However, for sheep who have been out in the paddock with little human contact, it is a very stressful experience. As some researchers have described:
" The shearing process involves sheep being driven by humans using motor vehicles or dogs, from distant paddocks to a shearing shed. There they are held in close confinement, often for many hours without food or water, until in turn they are caught, up-ended, and dragged to the shearing board. The wool is removed by noisy, hot machinery, which is capable of cutting both wool and skin " ( 31 ).
Shearing produces a dramatic rise is heart rate and stress hormones in the blood. Injuries increase this stress response ( 31 ). As mentioned previously, up to 20% of ewes have shearing damage to the teats ( 9 ), so obviously sheep can suffer painful cuts during shearing. To some extent, shearing will always be stressful, but better training of shearers could reduce this stress.
Teeth grinding
Teeth grinding became popular in 1985, and was applied to an estimated 1 million sheep in 1986. An angle grinder is used to grind the teeth down to gum level in sheep older than 3 or 4 years ( 32 ). More recent models remove the top few millimetres of the teeth ( 33 ). The aim is to prevent older sheep losing teeth and to give them a firmer bite.
However, sheep with their teeth trimmed don't increase their feed intake or weight gain, so there is in fact no benefit, although there is stress and pain involved. In one study 90% of sheep had tooth pulp exposed in at least 1 tooth ( 32 ).
Teeth grinding was banned in the UK in 1987. In Australia the
practice is still allowed, although the Code of Practice for the
Welfare of Sheep states:
"
Both teeth grinding and teeth
trimming have the potential for causing acute and chronic pain in
some animals. In the absence of sound evidence on the benefits of
teeth grinding and teeth trimming they cannot be recommended as
routine flock management procedures
".
In spite of such statements, the Stock Journal in its 1990 Farm Innovation Awards gave an encouragement award to a teeth trimming machine, and the machine was one of the most popular exhibits at the Karoonda Sheep Fair in 1991 ( 33 ).
Transport and slaughter
All sheep are eventually sent to slaughterhouses. Transport is recognised as a very stressful experience for the sheep-levels of stress hormones in the blood rise markedly ( 34 ). The animals are mustered from isolated paddocks, often with dogs, herded into trucks, subjected to traffic noise, and kept without food and water.
The Code of Practice for Land Transport states that sheep must be given water at least once every 12 hours, and food at least once every 24 hours, every 8 hours in the case of young animals. Sheep must be rested after a journey of 36 hours, although this time may be extended to 48 hours in the journey can be completed in that time.
Around 25% of sheep are bruised before slaughter. The main cause is one sheep riding up onto the one in front because drovers are pushing them to move faster than they can go. The other main cause is reluctant sheep being pulled by the wool to move forward ( 35 ). More considerate handling could greatly reduce the number of bruises.
Occasionally animal transporters have been found guilty of cruelty. For example, a driver was fined in rural Victoria for failing to take action after 24 sheep went down on a 14 hour journey and were trampled. At the slaughterhouse, he threw the downed sheep from the top of a 4-tier truck to the concrete below. At least 6 sheep were still alive when thrown ( 36 ).
All sheep have to be stunned before their throat is cut, except in religious slaughter. Jewish (kosher) slaughter in particular involves cutting the throat of fully conscious sheep, so they feel pain and fear while they bleed to death. Many Australian Muslims have accepted electrical stunning as long as a recognised halal slaughterman then kills the sheep according to Islamic requirements.
To render sheep unconscious, electrical tongs are applied to either side of the head and an electrical current is passed through the brain. The throat is supposed to be cut within 15 seconds of stunning, but it isn't certain that all animals are stunned properly in the first place, nor that they are all killed before regaining consciousness.
A survey by the government Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) in the UK found that slaughterhouse workers didn't know what voltage or current should be used for stunning, or for how long the stunning tongs should be applied to sheep to guarantee unconsciousness. Times varied from 1/2 second to 13 seconds. FAWC also found that the longest time between stunning and sticking was 96 seconds, so sheep could regain consciousness before being killed ( 37 ).
It is possible to avoid this suffering by changing to a cruelty-free lifestyle, based on a vegetarian diet and clothing made of plant or artificial materials. See Vegetarianism - the cruelty-free diet.
Go to References if you would like to see the references for this document on sheep, or click on any reference number in the text.