The Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) was created by international organisation Textile Exchange to establish best practice standards for the textile industry. The New Zealand Merino Company’s ZQ and ZQRX certification process audits its suppliers to comply with this standard. A revision to the standard’s requirements states that lambs shall be docked and castrated using pain relief.
The wording in the RWS handbook asserts in regard to both castration and tail docking that "for all methods, pain relief shall be applied when suitable pain relief is available".
A statement from New Zealand Merino Company general manager of markets and sustainability Dave Maslen said: "By June 2025, The New Zealand Merino Company’s growers throughout Aotearoa will be using pain relief for castration, tailing and any severe shearing injuries on farm. This is a step we need to take as pain mitigation is quickly becoming a non-negotiable for some markets and it is already a requirement of other international ethical wool standards."
Barewood Station manager Marty Deans said he began administering anaesthetic in 2021 and saw a major benefit for castration pain relief as male lambs were mothering back on a lot better. "We don’t see anywhere near as many potty little wether lambs coming into the yards at weaning time. With the pain relief on board, rather than lying down under a bush and becoming mismothered lambs, they were up on their feet and finding mum."
Barewood Station produces around 25,000 lambs each season and uses a tailing contractor. "We get through 7000 in a day even with the added pain relief jab. Once you have the system down and a trained staff member, it’s just another job on the chute and shouldn’t slow things down."
Mr Deans said he first started the procedure using Numnuts, a tool which combines an elastrator ring and an anaesthetic injection.
"But it was too slow, too expensive and not always effective. We threw it away and moved to a local anaesthetic injection."
The procedure meant the anaesthetic product needed to be prescribed by a vet and staff were trained how to administer it correctly in order to ensure it was effective in its use. "It’s definitely not a five-minute process. There’s not a lot to it, but don’t expect to tail tomorrow and ring the vet today. It pays to be organised. There’s nothing in it but it just takes a bit of time."
At a cost of 15 cents per injection, Mr Deans said the procedure quickly paid for itself if it was preventing mismothering. "There is nothing worse than coming into a paddock and seeing 50 or 60 lambs still sitting down in pain and mum has walked off with its ewe lamb. Even if this wasn’t a compliance requirement, we would still be doing it — the benefit outweighs the cost," he said.
Mr Deans said to date the farm had given pain relief for castration only, and not docking. "As far as I can see, it’s not the docking that’s painful to the lamb, it’s the castration. If you’re using a rubber ring around a tail then it’s a different story and I can see benefit in using pain relief, but a hot iron used correctly to shear a tail off as far as I can see is not problematic to the lamb."
There would be added cost to add in another anaesthetic jab to the tail before it was seared off ,which he did not believe was necessary, but accepted that should NZ Merino require it done he would oblige.
