As socially responsible producers and livestock owners, we consider it an imperative that our standard of animal husbandry complies with that being discussed on a global platform. Our Animal Welfare Manual documents the wide range of animal welfare measures we have implemented, and these far exceed industry expectations as contained in the Australian Animal Welfare Standards.

We have adopted a multitude of practices to ensure our animals are happy and well cared for:

• Significant focus on reducing, refining and replacing painful animal husbandry practices (no mulesing has been undertaken at Dunblane for over 10 years).
• Implementation of best practice sheep management.
• Ensuring humane processing.
• Preventing and managing disease and mortality.

We are excited about the continuous improvements to improve sheep and animal welfare standards on the horizon, particularly including:

• Several new pain relief chemicals are due to become available to producers, we plan to use these chemicals for tail docking and lamb castration.
• New technologies for sheep selection based on DNA and genetic markers are emerging. AWI have been reviewing the science of odour detection and how blowflies find sheep.