All our sheep are not mulesed.
Animal welfare on Fuhrmann managed farms
Fuhrmann wool is naturally mulesing free
No Mulesing Needed
Mulesing is a practice primarily found today in some parts of Australia where the weather conditions are moist and damp. The blowfly Lucilia cuprina lays its eggs into the skinfolds of a sheep’s rear. Once the eggs hatch the maggots start eating the sheep alive. To prevent this cruelty to the sheep, some of the skin around the rear of the sheep gets cut away once when it is still a little lamb.
While mulesing is there to save sheep, there has been strong criticism from animal rights organisations about this practice and things have already changed to improved sheep welfare in this area. Where possible wool growers in Australia have stopped mulesing on their farm. In areas where sheep are in danger of flystrike due to the natural conditions, more and more wool growers are using methods to make the procedure painless by using pain relief or avoiding it entirely by breeding sheep that don’t have any skin folds which makes mulesing unnecessary. With these efforts, the number of lambs who need to be mulesed is shrinking. If you want to read more about mulesing you find information here.
Countries such as New Zealand and South Africa have already banned the practice in response to concerns for animal welfare. In Patagonia however, there has never been any need for mulesing because the blowfly does not exist in the South of Argentina due to the natural sanitary conditions. The weather here is mostly arid, cool and dry so flies are not a health problem for the sheep. Therefore all our wool, including of course organic wool, is and has always been non-mulesed.