In short: yes.
The element of unethical or cruelty-involved wool stems from merino - in Australia, due to the environment and merino sheep being very wrinkly, they are prone to something called flystrike. Be warned: if you google this you will not like what you see. It’s worth looking it up but you will see graphic images. It’s a horrible and painful thing. So the method for preventing this is known as mulesing (mules-ing). This is where an area of skin either side of the sheep’s tail is cut away in order to remove the wrinkles, and left to heal up. These days, doing it without anaesthetic is banned, however when you consider the vastness of Australia and how many millions of sheep there are one has to imagine that this is hard to police. And so, “cruelty-free” merino equals wool that has come from sheep that have NOT been mulesed.
All the merino wool that we use is mulesing-free.
Sheep that are not mulesed have been bred to have tighter skin, making them less prone to flystrike. It’s that simple. But consider the economics - that means each sheep is producing less fleece and therefore less wool, which over a flock could be a considerable drop in output. This is why this wool is more expensive. However, I am SURE you will agree it is worth paying for.
PS. The sheep in the pic - that's a drawing I did of a merino sheep that I saw at a wool festival.. it's on our 'merino' drawstring project bags. :)
I am SO pleased to find that your merino is mulesing free. I have just received my order of sock yarns and minis from you, then realized that I hadn’t checked for this, so its a huge relief. The yarns are beautiful and soft and I’ll have a lot of fun knitting some socks for autumn! Thank you!