ADOPTASHEEP FAQ

You have every right to be outraged at the measures we woolgrowers have traditionally taken to protect our sheep from flystrike. Mulesing, or removing a flap of hide that attracts fly strike, is cruel and I can't be in the vicinity while it is being done. Although an animals's hide doesn't have the same sensitiivity as human skin, there is a lot of blood. Not a lot of bleating, though. And the agony a sheep experiences with maggots eating away at its flesh after a fly strike is far worse, don't you think? As soon as the new clips are available we will trial them. We already use fly traps liberally scattered about the property. And we check our flock everyday for strike - and pull a sheep out for treatment if required. Mulesing upsets me. It's strangely like circumcision. Or body piercing. It's interesting that a lot of animal rights activists willingly submit to having bits of metal thrust through their skin. They appear to want to be kinder to animals than to themselves or other human beings. Did you see the recent South Park episode where PETA was (I think unfairly) depicted as a bunch of emotionally lopsided human haters with a primitive desire to deify animals and sacrifice humans to them. Very funny, but not very fair or objective. It's good to be fair and objective, don't you think? We live by the belief that all living things are part of a community and that all members of the community - even weeds and farmers and animal rights activists - have a role to play and a right to exist. Amen.