AN ALTERNATIVE treatment to surgical mulesing is still more than a year away.

Research trials have shown intra-dermal mulesing still has plenty of hurdles to jump before it hits the market, according to Australian Wool Innovation's Geoff Lindon.

The intra-dermal process, known as SkinTraction, is 20 per cent slower than surgical mulesing, he said.

SkinTraction is one of several initiatives supported by AWI as alternatives to surgical mulesing.

Mr Lindon, AWI's head of sheep technologies, said the intra-dermal flystrike prevention treatment had "continuing hurdles to jump".

These included registration by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.

Mr Lindon said further testing was needed on wool length, vegetable matter, dags, skin thickness and toughness before commercialisation.

"The earliest that APVMA are likely to approve registration is in late 2010, or early in 2011," Mr Lindon said.

"We need to improve tail wool-cover results and the speed of treatment by 20 per cent to match current practices."

SkinTraction uses sodium lauryl sulphate - a common ingredient in toothpaste and cosmetics - combined with benzyl alcohol, which is a short-term anaesthetic.

Mr Lindon said SkinTraction destroyed pain-sensing cells and blood vessels.

It causes a dry scab to form, which lifts off as untreated skin, closing and stretching, removing wrinkles and increasing the natural bare area.

SkinTraction has been developed by Sydney-based research company Cobbett Technologies.

AWI signed a contract with Cobbett, which owns the patent for SkinTraction, to initiate the research in 2008-09.

Under the trials, lambs aged four to 12 weeks were treated with the product in lamb-marking cradles.

A CSIRO animal-welfare study revealed the behaviour of treated lambs was similar to untreated animals.

Field trials in 2008 assessed the volume and pressure per shot, the number of shots in the breech and tail, tube diameters and settings and the hand piece hardware.

Mr Lindon said the cost of SkinTraction treatments per animal would be comparable to surgical mulesing with pain relief.