Mulesing is a mutilation practice where young lambs are restrained on their backs, unable to move, while their skin is removed with sharp metal shears and without adequate pain relief. Mulesing is painful and traumatising for the animals. This brutal practice was invented in the 1920s in Australia in response to outbreaks of flystrike. Flystrike itself is an animal welfare issue where blowflies lay their eggs in sheep’s skin folds, which leads to an infestation. Blowflies exist all around the world, however, the Australian climate and sheep who have been bred with excessive skin folds make for an ideal environment for these flies. Blowflies are particularly attracted to skin folds that retain moisture, especially faeces and urine. For that reason, the areas primarily affected are around the buttocks. The purpose of mulesing is to cut 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. Importantly, 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').