Live lamb cutting is a mutilation where young lambs are restrained on their backs, unable to move or to run away while their skin is removed with sharp metal shears and without adequate pain relief. This brutal practice was invented in the 1920s in Australia in response to regular outbreaks of flystrike. Lamb cutting is painful and traumatising for the animals. Flystrike itself is an animal welfare issue where blowflies lay their eggs in sheep’s skinfolds which leads to an infestation. Blowflies exist all around the world, however, the Australian climate and overbred sheep with excessive skin folds are the ideal environment for these flies. Blowflies are particularly attracted to skinfolds that retain moisture, especially faeces and urine. For that reason, the areas primarily affected are around the buttocks. Live lamb cutting (mulesing) of young lambs is cutting off the skin folds around the buttocks to leave a bare area where no wool and no wrinkles grow for flies to lay their eggs in. The procedure is performed annually without adequate pain relief on over 10 million lambs in Australia and it does not even solve the problem of fly infestation. Flies can still lay eggs in other skin folds on the sheep’s body (so called 'bodystrike'). Mulesing, named after its creator John Mules, is an outdated term for an outdated and archaic practice. This terminology fails to describe the practice and, as a result, hides the cruelty involved. Animal protection organisations, including FOUR PAWS, are referring to the practice of mulesing as 'live lamb cutting' and encourage the industry to use terminology that accurately reflects the situation.