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What to know about wool this winter

Winter is well and truly here, and many Australians feeling the chill will be reaching for those woolly comforts to keep warm. Australia is one of the leading global producers of wool, and consumers often believe that Aussie wool is an ethical and sustainable option for winter essentials. However, it is important to ensure that the wool you buy is produced responsibly with animal welfare in mind.

RSPCA Australia
Thursday, 25 June 2026

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Winter is well and truly here, and many Australians feeling the chill will be reaching for those woolly comforts to keep warm. Australia is one of the leading global producers of wool, and consumers often believe that Aussie wool is an ethical and sustainable option for winter essentials. However, it is important to ensure that the wool you buy is produced responsibly with animal welfare in mind.

Conscious choices are becoming the new norm for a growing number of Australians, who care about the animal welfare impacts of the product they’re purchasing just as much as the quality and origin. But when it comes to wool, it can be difficult to determine by labelling alone if that product really is as ethical as it claims to be. Here’s what consumers need to know when purchasing wool.

Not all wool is produced with higher-welfare animal practices. Many products made using Australian wool come from Merino sheep who have been mulesed. Mulesing is a painful husbandry procedure used by the wool industry to prevent flystrike in sheep. Lambs are restrained on their backs while crescent-shaped flaps of skin are cut from the breech area (backside, upper hind legs and tail) using sharp shears.

Mulesing is painful, and while most lambs are given some pain relief after the cutting process this doesn’t prevent the pain caused at the time the skin is cut. The local anaesthetic gel most commonly used is only applied onto the open wound after the mulesing process... Similarly, while anti-inflammatory pain relief products help to reduce pain after the procedure, they don’t eliminate it, and they don’t address the pain felt during the procedure itself. Although mulesing wounds take weeks to heal, few sheep are given longer-acting anti-inflammatory pain relief. So, pain relief doesn’t prevent the pain caused by the skin cutting, and it doesn’t adequately address the fear, distress and longer-term pain that mulesing causes. Whilst flystrike itself does present a serious animal welfare concern, the substantial negative impacts of mulesing on sheep welfare cannot be ignored.

A better way is already here and available.

Australia’s wool industry has over-relied on the use of mulesing for the last 100 years. Merino sheep with wrinkly skins were originally thought to grow more wool, which has led to the breeding of Merino strains in Australia that are highly susceptible to flystrike. Mulesing has been used as a solution to this, but a better way is to breed sheep who are suited to the Australian climate without the need for surgical removal of their excess skin to protect them from flystrike.

A viable and, most importantly, more humane solution already exists, which is to breed low-skin-wrinkle (plain-bodied), flystrike-resistant sheep. This means sheep that have fewer skin wrinkles and can still produce similar amounts and types of wool. It’s a pain-free solution that’s available to the industry, and while it takes a few years to shift the genetics of a flock to be flystrike resistant, it would save millions of lambs from the pain and distress of mulesing. This solution has been known about for decades, yet still only a small percentage of the Merino wool industry has shifted to non-mulesed flocks.

Out of touch with modern expectations.

While Australia is one of the largest producers of wool globally, producing around 280 million kilograms in 2025 according to DAFF reports, (by comparison, New Zealand, the next largest wool producing nation produces around 115-120 million kilograms) and contributing 70% of the apparel wool used by the global fashion industry, we are also significantly behind when it comes to the welfare of our sheep. New Zealand, Argentina, Norway, South Africa, the US and the UK also produce significant amounts wool, yet Australia is the only country in the world where mulesing sheep is still known to occur.

And the world is taking notice. More than 340 fashion brands including Cos, Adidas, and Patagonia have committed to certified mulesing-free wool and are directly calling on the Australian government and wool industry to end the practice. As long as Australia continues to allow mulesing, our wool industry’s reputation is at risk, with consumers already actively seeking mulesing-free wool or avoiding wool completely.

This presents an opportunity for Australia to evolve and meet today’s consumer expectations.

What can welfare conscious individuals do?

Conscious consumers can do their part to stop mulesing by purchasing only non-mulesed wool products. Look for information about the source of the wool and the standards under which it was produced. Some brands provide transparency about their supply chains and whether the wool comes from non-mulesed sheep. Humane World for Animals have produced a Better Wool Guide which includes over 300 national and international brands, such as Country Road and David Jones, that have pledged to move away from using wool from sheep who have been mulesed. If your favourite brand hasn’t already disclosed their position on mulesing and sheep welfare, we would encourage you to contact them directly to find out about their animal welfare policies.

Remember, every purchasing choice has the power to speak for animals. By seeking wool from producers and brands committed to higher-welfare practices, individuals can drive positive change for sheep and encourage the wool industry to finally end mulesing for good.

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What to know about wool this winter

Stay informed on big issues and how you can help improve animal welfare across Australia.