The group consists of 10 ram breeders and 150 commercial clients (about 800,000 sheep) started breeding Merinos without any wrinkle seven years ago.

They are already in front when the 2010 mulesing deadline hits.

Nearly one third of the group – which come from all parts of Australia farming and operate under a range of environmental conditions – are in their fourth year of not mulesing, and the majority of the group intends to stop mulesing this year.

MPM representative Dwain Duxson said MPM sheep were bred to be free of any body wrinkle on soft thin skins, and the legacy of breeding without wrinkles as that their sheep don’t require mulesing.

“In traditional wrinkly Merinos what happens is that moisture gets trapped close to a wrinkled area on the rump and once it’s trapped this area is unable to dry and in turn forms an odour which attracts the flies,” Mr Duxson said.

“The perception among Merino breeders is that if you have plain sheep you lose wool cut, but in our case we have managed to maintain our wool cuts (which are above industry average) but drop micron and increase our fecundity, meat and growth attributes,” he said.

So far results from MPM sheep have found that wool grows up to 20 per cent longer on wrinkle-free skin, is extremely soft, has good style and possible the biggest advantage for MPM breeders, fleece quality control in older sheep.

In Mr Duxson’s experience, this has meant the quality of fleece only deteriorates “ever so slightly” as the sheep ages.

At his own property, Glendemar, near Stawell, MPM non-mulesed breeding ewes are cutting from 5-8 kilograms of fleece, and they have been able to finish wether lambs at nine months compared to 10 months, as a result of cutting out mulesing related stress.

“When we first stopped mulesing four years ago we were wary, but we have had not problems and certainly doing a pre-shearing crutch and shearing three times every 24 months helps,” Mr Duxson said.