World’s Largest Supermarket Rejects Lamb Mutilation

Many Australian sheep will be spared from mutilation thanks to brand giant Tesco, which has announced that it will buy lamb meat only from farms that do not perform mulesing.

Mulesing is a barbaric procedure in which Australian farmers use gardening shears to carve chunks of skin and flesh from the lambs’ backsides in a crude attempt to create smoother skin that won’t collect moisture and attract flies. But the exposed, bloody wounds often attract flies before they heal, or they become infected. Many sheep who have undergone the mulesing mutilation still suffer slow, agonising deaths from flystrike. PETA and its affiliates have lobbied for the Australian wool industry to require all sheep farmers to control flystrike with humane methods – such as breeding for a bare breech, spray-washing and more frequent monitoring of sheep – that are already being used by some farmers.

A mulesed lamb photo © Patty Mark – alv.org.au

To thank Tesco for helping to end this cruel practice, PETA has sent them a vegan cake emblazoned with the image of a sheep. You can be a flock star by urging the Australian government to outlaw mulesing today.