Alternatives to "mulesing"

Just saw an article on mulesing, and of course lost the link but topix.net has a bunch of articles, never heard that term before, must be an Aussie thing. Apparently “The process — performed without anaesthetic — involves cutting away wool and skin from the animal's hindquarters to prevent them from becoming infested with blowflies.” The article is about finding an alternative to mulesinging (is that a word?) due to the inhumane nature of the mulesing process.
It was mentioned that the farmers said that the blowflies cause more pain than the mulesing, I am sure there are more than a few people out there that would scoff at that but who knows?

In undergrad I did an independent study on “animal pain”. No, didn’t lop off any bunny heads or anything it was mostly reviewing literature. At the time I was a vegetarian, too so enough with the sadism flack.

The question came to me, do animals feel pain like we do? Simple yes? Well not so simple, the example that made this occur to me was castrating piglets. Have you ever picked up a piglet? If you don’t hold them close to you chances are they will squeal, and loud, the kind of thing that you can’t imagine coming from an animal that small. But you are supporting them, not crushing them, nada; and as soon as you put them down its like you flipped a switch, the turn off, nothing they just trot off. Now, have you castrated a piglet? In many operations (including the one I worked in) you just have a razor, and some iodine, and that’s it. You cut’em rip the testicles out, then move on to the next piggy. The thing is, they start squealing at the top of their lungs as soon as you pick them up, the squeal just as much as you are cutting them, and as soon as you put them down they stop, totally (though albeit are a bit wobbly, I’d probably be a bit wobbly too though). While I am positive animals feel pain, I am not so sure it is in the same way that you and I feel pain. None the less, its good that they are looking into methods that don’t mutilate the animals. I think the livestock industry is prone to taking the easiest/shortest solution instead of the all around best solution.