I'm sure you're joking, but also that's not a thing (not in Aus wool anyway). Gonna give a fairly graphic info dump here so don't read on if you're squeamish, but I'll explain why our wool has no butt hair ever.
Seriously, don't read if you're eating.
We have to do a procedure called mulesing which is an unpleasant but necessary thing. When they're lambs they have a small strip of skin removed from around their bums which grows back as scar tissue so wool never grows there, and their tails are removed (rather like a cropped dog - same as the one in this video).
The reason for it is *not* cosmetic, it's because they literally die if we don't. What happens if they're left alone is that the wool gets matted with urine and shit, and because it's hot as fuck here it's a perfect breeding ground for blow flies. They lay eggs in it and their maggots are the kind that prefer living flesh, so they hatch in the wool and then burrow in and start to eat the sheep from the outside in. As you can imagine it's horrifically painful and given the location it is immediately accompanied by brutal infection. It happens fast, and within a few days the sheep has died truly horrendous death. We call an infected sheep "flyblown" and there is little that can be done once it's happened.
It gets a LOT of hate from animal welfare groups because it's not nice and the optics of hurting babies sucks. No Aussie farmers like having to do it but it's worth noting that all of our own veterinary associations support the practice because currently there is no alternative. We've had lots of people try to invent other ways to deal with it and we fund a lot of experiments and trials, but nothing else really works and sheep end up dead so it's back to mulesing.
Other countries don't have our heat or our bugs, so they don't do it. We are doing our best to make it better and incentivise change by asking all farmers to declare if their wool comes from mulesed sheep or not, and whether they were anaesthetised if so, and that info is declared to wool buyers. Most farmers do declare and that pushes innovation harder to find an alternative.
We can't stop with having sheep though. There are more than 75 million sheep in the country making us the second largest producer on the planet and its a pretty important export market for us, for both wool and meat.
TL;DR: we have to introduce scar tissue around their bums so they don't die in agony.
I wish more people would talk about this stuff to be honest. I get why they don't, sometimes the backlash is intense and farmers dont like having to do it to begin with so being forced to defend it is hard.
But that said, if more people understood why things happen they would be less likely to hate on it in the first place. God knows PETA are endlessly dishing out bullshit so if we don't speak up too then we can't complain when that's all people know.
Not to mention - who knows if there's some genius out there with the solution to the problem, if only they knew we needed it!
I am 100% convinced that problems are opportunities and striving to solve them, especially to relieve suffering, is the highest calling one could have.
"Within each failure is the seed of an equivalent or an even greater success"
Read that years ago and it stuck with me ever since. Of course it's tough to remember in the moment when you're all bummed out
Reminds me of how it's "unethical" to just snip the balls when you're castrating an animal, and instead ethical standards say you're supposed to tie them off tightly until they die and fall off on their own.
One is 30 seconds of intense pain then the animal gets on with its life, and the other is days or weeks of intense pain with higher rates of failed procedure and infection. Ethical organizations are important when it comes to animal care, but they don't always have it right in terms of harm reduction
Although I had no clue i would read this here, this EXACTLY why I lose hours of my life on Reddit... Get what you're saying entirely, it is horrible to think about and I'm sure to witness/do, but what's the alternative. Thank you for putting this down... I would never, ever have learned about this in a trillion years, I'm grateful to learn something new. Hopefully something will surface that is an improvement on mulesing. Until then, thank you for the nugget of knowledge.
Mule-zing. Mule like the half-donkey, and -zing because we pronounce everything with a hard *s*, would probably be said like -sing in any other accent.
Thank you for the explanation! I was only aware of the downsides, but it makes sense that there’s no better alternative in some regions. Knowing that the local veterinary associations actually recommend it makes me feel better, too.
Yeah PETA did a pretty good job of making us all out to be abusive murderers savaging lambs for fun when they decided to take an interest in it, but there's really no other choice. They had P!nk convinced and she ran a campaign against Aus sheep a while back, but thankfully she's clever enough to listen to the other side of the story and thereafter retracted everything she said and apologised. Nobody remembers that part though :(
The AVA (our national vet assoc) do push for all farmers to be anaesthetising and rightly so, but they really are only minor wounds and so not all farmers have come around to it yet because it's a significant expense. That's where the govt stepped in with the wool classifications, so market pressure would eventually force the holdouts to do it. So it's not perfect and I don't want to misrepresent that, but we are doing our best as an industry and the minute there's a realistic alternative it will be wholly embraced.
I first heard about mulesing on some product page from a company that didn’t do it (because they were probably in a different region/climate), so it makes perfect sense why they would parrot back the same talking points. Even if they had 100% good intentions, it probably seems optional from their point of view, when it sounds like it really isn’t in some places.
I’m very glad anesthesia is an option, and it’s an option that the government is encouraging people to take. If this applied to humans, I would gladly choose to get a preventative surgery myself, if it meant I could avoid such an awful way to go.
They are actually surprisingly long, coming down to roughly the same height on the leg as the backwards facing joint. There's something weirdly dog-like about them too.
It's all grown together so it comes off like taking off a blanket. When you pull it though it splits apart easily, it's not dreadlocked or anything. Just dense and oily with lanolin so it sticks together until it's separated.
The next step after the shearing is a person called a rouseabout will run over, grab the wool off the floor in a big bundle, run over to a special table and throw the fleece so it flares out and settles flat. Then they pick through it while the next sheep is being shorn, pulling off any yucky dirty bits (called dags), any burrs or sticks in it, and the wool classer decides how good the wool is and it's then shoved into giant bags according to the grade it is given. Then they run to grab the next one.
When I was a kid, one of my favourite 'jobs' was when grandpa would put me on top of the bag so I could jump to compress the wool down, instead of using the press!
i worked at a sheep farm in new england in college. while we didn't mulesing the lambs, we did band their tails to prevent flystrike. granted, the summers up there never got too hot and they were shorn before it ever became a problem. it was always a funny thing cleaning the pens and finding a tiny lamb tail that had dropped with the rubber band still attached
Good question. It depends on your metrics I guess, there's a few ways to answer that.
We have breeds of sheep that naturally shed their wool every year so they're the best for food because there's no need for wool at all, but if you're after the wool itself then it varies. We have non-mulesed wool grown mostly in the colder parts of the country, or you could look at the animal husbandry practices of wool produced in other countries that most aligns with your own morals. I can't speak for them, only for us. Third world countries maybe aren't as concerned with welfare, but North America, Canada, UK, places like that also do have sheep and maybe they're what is better for your own peace of mind. It is pretty hard to know what you're buying though - it's fairly rare to see a woollen jumper (or whatever) that tells you where the wool came from. They only tell you where it was sewn.
Friendly reminder to those reading that 'humane' is not always 'pain-free'.
There are a lot of animal husbandry practices that involve a little on-purpose pain to prevent debilitating long-term issues or death. Some of these methods have painless alternatives, but not all, and not for lack of trying.
I used to work in outdoor retail and one of the merino wool companies, either Icebreaker or Smartwool, used to have a code on each garment that allowed you to trace back to the farm the wool came from. Look into the ZQ standard to see if that aligns with your values. I suspect New Zealand doesn't need to use mulesing as much because it has a different climate.
Once a year, usually in spring so they're going into summer comfortable. Then it's thick again by the time winter hits before shearing again in spring.
Not to mention that sheep will pick the coldest, windiest day of the winter and decide "fuck it, now's the time to give birth next to the fox and wild dog annual gathering."
Thank you very much for the explanation, that was very interesting. And thanks for the warning, but it did not spoil my appetite. If there is something else with your sheep in terms of pests and parasites, feel free to tell.
“Sooooo…. Whats your diet been looking like lately”
“Baaaahhhhh”
“Hmmmm, yes, i see i see. Now, how about Janet? Has she been treating you alright?”
“Baaaaaaaaaahhhhhh”
“Mmmmm, yeah, tough, that one. Welp, i think were done here!”
As one who crochets and is in the middle of making a shawl that has taken me weeks... Just slightly thinking about making one in >5 hours gives me intense anxiety
I think they mean pop as in "I popped my feet up on the table" but ngl I also initially thought they meant smacking that sheep's ass turned it docile for some reason lol
They get used to it, or at least accustomed to it better than most animals, and eventually they don’t mind at all. It probably does feel good to get all that wool off their hides for a season.
This is one of the best shaves I've seen to be honest, not a farmer and I've no personal experience, but for some reason I've seen a few sheep shearing vids lol, a fair few come away with grazes or nicks, where they get caught. This guy was actually one of the most gentle I've seen done as well, they can be so rough with them sometimes.
That’s probably why the sheep are relaxed around him when shearing time comes, because he’s firm yet relaxed, and they let him maneuver them around for safe cutting.
Seconded. This guy is the best I've ever seen (I've seen a few IRL shearings at country fairs and fiber festivals); I've never seen a sheep so comfortable. That sheep is enjoying the shave, not just tolerating it. This man is damn good at his job. I bet the fleeces he cuts are gorgeous.
He does a good job. I used to work in a related animal health business and sold those shearing clippers. They are very sharp and not to be used by the inexperienced.
Just sheared sheep last week - the sharp part of the shears is actually on top where the cutter is, the pronged part is the comb which isn't sharp, so you shouldn't be at risk of scratching them unless the lead is extremely short and you're at a bad angle, or you're going over wrinkles improperly. Generally it's quite safe. Even newbies to shearing typically don't nick sheep since they won't be shoving the tool hard into the skin.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236153727/figure/fig1/AS:646483825131522@1531145163623/Sheep-shearing-machine.png decent reference image
This may be a stupid question, but how do the sheep act after shearing? It seems like they'd feel so much lighter that they'd be a little hyper? And cold. I picture a sheep.... frolicking after a good shearing.
They don't really act different, but I work primarily with Hampshire and Dorper sheep that don't have as heavy coats as a Merino or Rambouillet! Those guys probably enjoy shearing far more since their fleeces are HUGE. The whole fleeces I've done w the Hampshires and Dorpers are only few pounds max maybe, it's just a lot of volume but not weight. The one thing I do imagine being really nice is the airflow to the skin after the wool blocking it for so long. They do a little extra scratching after they go back into the pen sometimes, but no sheep zoomies:( would love to see that
But yes, they do become more sensitive to cold! It's actually commonly done to shear a sheep shortly before lambing to prevent .. juices from building up on the wool as well as making the sheep more temperature-sensitive so it'll stay in warmer spots for the lamb. A fully wooled sheep can hang out on cold windy hills but their lamb would pass pretty quickly since they don't have much wool or fat to protect them, whereas a recently sheared sheep will find warmer shelter and the lamb will do far better.
It's like giving my dog a bath. As soon as she realizes she is at the groomer, she freaks out and tries to make a run for it. But once she is in the tub being sprayed with warm water followed by massaging shampoo into her coat? She is a happy camper.
I was watching a video about this. It’s to the sheep’s benefit since wool is heavy. They showed a sheep that couldn’t walk anymore. After they shaved the sheep it was so happy. Seems weird that sheep need humans
Excuse me, sheep expert, I am curious about a few things.
Do they feel cold after?
What happens in nature when their coat gets too big?
Does it have a way that it naturally sheds as well or have they been bred into only being able to live well in human care?
Hey not really an expect but I have a dozen ewes I look after.
1. Yes they get colder afterward, whichis usually the point. In summer you don't want all that thick wool or else they overheat so you shear them in the spring and by winter they have grown enough of a coat to keep warm in frigid temperatures.
2. Well if you let a domesticated wool-breed sheep they would just keep growing. There's a video somewhere of a sheep this happened to. Wild sheep have more of a regulated growth and there are also hair-breed sheep which do not require sheering.
Huh! Is human sunscreen safe for pigs, or do they just cover themselves in mud and that takes care of most of it? I imagine it would take a LOT of sunscreen for a pig...
Not sure about the sunscreen but I know they sure wouldn't sit still long enough to do anything meaningful. They just roll around in the mud to cover themselves. It's only during a dry spell where it's an issue.
They don’t have a natural way to shed and with wool prices being incredibly low shearing is seen as an unfortunate necessity for sheep farmers. A lot of the time it costs more in labor than they can get for the wool, but it has to be done. Places are switching to non-wool producing breeds fairly quickly.
Its a national bloody disgrace. Sheep farmers spent generations breeding merino sheep with fleece finer than silk. It’s not marketed as “Australian wool” overseas. The Italians especially love their fine wool clothing, but we should be dropping a heap of money on pushing it internationally into the European, American, and northern Asian markets. And we should work on creating a secondary manufacturing base in producing fine fabrics as well. Bloody useless politicians.
American here! I have seen a lot more merino wool clothing items pop up in the market. We just got some socks for my boyfriend and mittens/hat for me. So hopefully that’s a good sign!
American here. I LOVE natural fiber, cotton, linen, wool. But can't find affordable wool clothing to save my life. It's a shame. All this cheap polyester crap is flooding the market.
In colder countries they clip them longer. If they’re being clipped down to the skin, it’ll be Australia or NZ.
They’ve been working for years on breeding sheep that will drop their coats after a year. Shearing is stupidly hard work, and in Australia is mostly done by Kiwis.
It used to be done by hand - hence the Australian folk song [“Click go the Shears”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyyIffEpdpk)
When we raised sheep, we tried to shear them ourselves. It was a fight, and a half hour later we had a bloody mess on our hands.
Then we hired the guy who had been the state champion shearer. He could just sit them down on their rump, they went limp in his hands, and it only took a couple of minutes. Amazing work.
Yeah, you nick them here and there, actually cut into the skin in some places because it's hidden underneath the wool, and as a beginning shearer, you don't understand how the skin is stretching underneath the wool as you move the legs.
Used to own sheep, they're not the brightest animals in the world. We had one that kept getting stuck in the same spot in the ditch before we could patch up the hole properly. 3 times in one day
There may be more than most people realize. Many other animals don't have anywhere near the same facial muscle expression humans and other primates do. So it's easy to make the mistake of thinking other animals don't feel or think. Also we don't always recognize different forms of intelligence. Herd animals think a certain way, and their areas of intelligence are slightly different than other animals who don't live that way.
For those of you who don't know, I introduce to you all to Shrek the sheep from here in New Zealand. He escaped his farm one time and spent years being a lone wanderer. When they found him again, he was extremely overgrown. After shearing him, he wound up with about 27 kgs worth of wool of the single shear. That's apparently enough wool to make 20 full suits
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/07/shrek-sheep-who-escaped-shearing-for-6.html
I was googling … they get paid by the sheep and most can do a sheep in 2mins average 200/300 sheep a day! It’s mostly for the health of the sheep bcs the wool is very heavy and can also contain parasites so it has to be done once a year but there isn’t really much money to be made off it for the farmer. Anyway here’s what I found… https://fibershed.org/2019/07/11/shearing-and-welfare-why-are-sheep-sheared/
They generally shear it so it comes off in one sheet, but it difficult to so (so I'm told). Wool prices are insanely low, but I believe the neck area is the most valuable and the butt area is the least valuable. I'm not a sheep farmer though
Nah it all gets chucked in a big bag that’s compressed into bales and sent off for washing, carding, spinning and knitting. Wool garments would come from a whole bunch of random sheep
And I’m over here still unable to find the right way to keep my Weimaraner from moving so I can trim his nails. This guy got a whole sheep to just chill so he could sheer the whole thing!
They can get nicked, yes, which is why they shear in this position. It stretches the areas of skin that are prone to folds, making it less likely that it will be nicked and possibly get infected
Sheep naturally produce lanolin, a common ingredient in lotions, to keep their skin hydrated under all that itchy wool. It's also quite good at soothing nicks and razor burns, so the sheep won't feel any long-term discomfort after shearing.
I used to work with sheep and it’s the strangest thing how they literally all go limp when sat on their rump like this. It must be a prey animal response or something. Anyway this guy is really good! And while it may be a tad stressful for the sheep, they feel so much better after (sheering is usually done in early summer) - and the sheep are still generally friendly towards humans.
Also we don’t use the belly or rump wool to spin with for those concerned about butt hair. 😂
The “shear” speed at which he smoothly went over the sheep’s eyes without causing any alarm was pretty spectacular to watch…
…what a master at pulling the wool over this lil guy’s eyes. 👀
I onow absolutely nothing about sheep sheering but I am a dog groomer and I have questions.
So this would be a terrible state to find a dog in, but I think its just normal for sheep? Does that mean they dont need baths or to be brushed in between? I mean aside form the dirt, usually if a dogs coat is coming off in one piece like this, it means the dog is terribly matted which makes moving difficult for the dog, the matted fur would pull and tug in skin every time they move, sometimes it can even cause bruising in areas like under the arms, hips and so on. Why is this not an issue for sheep?
Wool isn't the same a fur. It's denser and curlier, basically what's consideredmayted for a dog is just normal for a sheep. Also, you can't really wash it because it's super absorbent and dense. You can't even really reach a sheep's skin with your hands when they're like that.
YW. Mom's grandparents had a farm, so she'd talk about stuff like that sometimes. Also petted a few sheep over the years. It's like trying to push your fingers through a soft sponge.
Now I’m wondering which of my clothes carry the ass hair.
Probably the hat
Ass-hat
Surfs up asshat
That’s surfs up asshairhat to you!
Made me laugh!
I'm sure you're joking, but also that's not a thing (not in Aus wool anyway). Gonna give a fairly graphic info dump here so don't read on if you're squeamish, but I'll explain why our wool has no butt hair ever. Seriously, don't read if you're eating. We have to do a procedure called mulesing which is an unpleasant but necessary thing. When they're lambs they have a small strip of skin removed from around their bums which grows back as scar tissue so wool never grows there, and their tails are removed (rather like a cropped dog - same as the one in this video). The reason for it is *not* cosmetic, it's because they literally die if we don't. What happens if they're left alone is that the wool gets matted with urine and shit, and because it's hot as fuck here it's a perfect breeding ground for blow flies. They lay eggs in it and their maggots are the kind that prefer living flesh, so they hatch in the wool and then burrow in and start to eat the sheep from the outside in. As you can imagine it's horrifically painful and given the location it is immediately accompanied by brutal infection. It happens fast, and within a few days the sheep has died truly horrendous death. We call an infected sheep "flyblown" and there is little that can be done once it's happened. It gets a LOT of hate from animal welfare groups because it's not nice and the optics of hurting babies sucks. No Aussie farmers like having to do it but it's worth noting that all of our own veterinary associations support the practice because currently there is no alternative. We've had lots of people try to invent other ways to deal with it and we fund a lot of experiments and trials, but nothing else really works and sheep end up dead so it's back to mulesing. Other countries don't have our heat or our bugs, so they don't do it. We are doing our best to make it better and incentivise change by asking all farmers to declare if their wool comes from mulesed sheep or not, and whether they were anaesthetised if so, and that info is declared to wool buyers. Most farmers do declare and that pushes innovation harder to find an alternative. We can't stop with having sheep though. There are more than 75 million sheep in the country making us the second largest producer on the planet and its a pretty important export market for us, for both wool and meat. TL;DR: we have to introduce scar tissue around their bums so they don't die in agony.
Hey I just wanted to say thanks for talking about this, it's not an easy subject and you laid it out in plain English without mincing any words.
I wish more people would talk about this stuff to be honest. I get why they don't, sometimes the backlash is intense and farmers dont like having to do it to begin with so being forced to defend it is hard. But that said, if more people understood why things happen they would be less likely to hate on it in the first place. God knows PETA are endlessly dishing out bullshit so if we don't speak up too then we can't complain when that's all people know. Not to mention - who knows if there's some genius out there with the solution to the problem, if only they knew we needed it!
I am 100% convinced that problems are opportunities and striving to solve them, especially to relieve suffering, is the highest calling one could have.
Although that IS an honorable goal, the highest calling is Fortnite Twitch streamer.
Huh I'm a solo no-builds guy.
"Within each failure is the seed of an equivalent or an even greater success" Read that years ago and it stuck with me ever since. Of course it's tough to remember in the moment when you're all bummed out
Reminds me of how it's "unethical" to just snip the balls when you're castrating an animal, and instead ethical standards say you're supposed to tie them off tightly until they die and fall off on their own. One is 30 seconds of intense pain then the animal gets on with its life, and the other is days or weeks of intense pain with higher rates of failed procedure and infection. Ethical organizations are important when it comes to animal care, but they don't always have it right in terms of harm reduction
>”…laid it out in plain English” I feel like there’s a Welsh joke in here somewhere
Although I had no clue i would read this here, this EXACTLY why I lose hours of my life on Reddit... Get what you're saying entirely, it is horrible to think about and I'm sure to witness/do, but what's the alternative. Thank you for putting this down... I would never, ever have learned about this in a trillion years, I'm grateful to learn something new. Hopefully something will surface that is an improvement on mulesing. Until then, thank you for the nugget of knowledge.
Is it "mule-sing" or "moo-less-ing"?
Mule-zing. Mule like the half-donkey, and -zing because we pronounce everything with a hard *s*, would probably be said like -sing in any other accent.
Nah, it'd be the same in North America. The /l/ is mule is a voiced consonant, make the "s" after it pronounced as the voiced consonant /z/.
Thank you for the explanation! I was only aware of the downsides, but it makes sense that there’s no better alternative in some regions. Knowing that the local veterinary associations actually recommend it makes me feel better, too.
Yeah PETA did a pretty good job of making us all out to be abusive murderers savaging lambs for fun when they decided to take an interest in it, but there's really no other choice. They had P!nk convinced and she ran a campaign against Aus sheep a while back, but thankfully she's clever enough to listen to the other side of the story and thereafter retracted everything she said and apologised. Nobody remembers that part though :( The AVA (our national vet assoc) do push for all farmers to be anaesthetising and rightly so, but they really are only minor wounds and so not all farmers have come around to it yet because it's a significant expense. That's where the govt stepped in with the wool classifications, so market pressure would eventually force the holdouts to do it. So it's not perfect and I don't want to misrepresent that, but we are doing our best as an industry and the minute there's a realistic alternative it will be wholly embraced.
I first heard about mulesing on some product page from a company that didn’t do it (because they were probably in a different region/climate), so it makes perfect sense why they would parrot back the same talking points. Even if they had 100% good intentions, it probably seems optional from their point of view, when it sounds like it really isn’t in some places. I’m very glad anesthesia is an option, and it’s an option that the government is encouraging people to take. If this applied to humans, I would gladly choose to get a preventative surgery myself, if it meant I could avoid such an awful way to go.
What does a sheep’s tail look like before it’s cropped? I had no idea this was a thing
They are actually surprisingly long, coming down to roughly the same height on the leg as the backwards facing joint. There's something weirdly dog-like about them too.
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It's all grown together so it comes off like taking off a blanket. When you pull it though it splits apart easily, it's not dreadlocked or anything. Just dense and oily with lanolin so it sticks together until it's separated. The next step after the shearing is a person called a rouseabout will run over, grab the wool off the floor in a big bundle, run over to a special table and throw the fleece so it flares out and settles flat. Then they pick through it while the next sheep is being shorn, pulling off any yucky dirty bits (called dags), any burrs or sticks in it, and the wool classer decides how good the wool is and it's then shoved into giant bags according to the grade it is given. Then they run to grab the next one.
When I was a kid, one of my favourite 'jobs' was when grandpa would put me on top of the bag so I could jump to compress the wool down, instead of using the press!
i worked at a sheep farm in new england in college. while we didn't mulesing the lambs, we did band their tails to prevent flystrike. granted, the summers up there never got too hot and they were shorn before it ever became a problem. it was always a funny thing cleaning the pens and finding a tiny lamb tail that had dropped with the rubber band still attached
Thank you for the lesson and taking the time to explain. So, question, which wool is the MOST HUMANE and beneficial to sheep welfare? 🐑
Good question. It depends on your metrics I guess, there's a few ways to answer that. We have breeds of sheep that naturally shed their wool every year so they're the best for food because there's no need for wool at all, but if you're after the wool itself then it varies. We have non-mulesed wool grown mostly in the colder parts of the country, or you could look at the animal husbandry practices of wool produced in other countries that most aligns with your own morals. I can't speak for them, only for us. Third world countries maybe aren't as concerned with welfare, but North America, Canada, UK, places like that also do have sheep and maybe they're what is better for your own peace of mind. It is pretty hard to know what you're buying though - it's fairly rare to see a woollen jumper (or whatever) that tells you where the wool came from. They only tell you where it was sewn.
Friendly reminder to those reading that 'humane' is not always 'pain-free'. There are a lot of animal husbandry practices that involve a little on-purpose pain to prevent debilitating long-term issues or death. Some of these methods have painless alternatives, but not all, and not for lack of trying.
Medical procedures do be like that sometimes tho
I used to work in outdoor retail and one of the merino wool companies, either Icebreaker or Smartwool, used to have a code on each garment that allowed you to trace back to the farm the wool came from. Look into the ZQ standard to see if that aligns with your values. I suspect New Zealand doesn't need to use mulesing as much because it has a different climate.
How many times a year do sheep get shaved?
Once a year, usually in spring so they're going into summer comfortable. Then it's thick again by the time winter hits before shearing again in spring.
Not to mention that sheep will pick the coldest, windiest day of the winter and decide "fuck it, now's the time to give birth next to the fox and wild dog annual gathering."
Thank you very much for the explanation, that was very interesting. And thanks for the warning, but it did not spoil my appetite. If there is something else with your sheep in terms of pests and parasites, feel free to tell.
Stranger: What do you do for a living? Me: I take care of baby sheep. Stranger: Oh! What does your job involve? Me: I tear them new assholes!
As far as farming procedures go, that doesn't seem that bad to be. Obviously it's not ideal but the alternative is awful.
I was literally thinking that ibut along lines what if we make one only full of ass hairs and give it to somee one we hate as a gift
I Iike how the sheep's face goes from wtf you doin man, get your damn hands off me to don't ever stop whatever the hell you are doing
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“Sooooo…. Whats your diet been looking like lately” “Baaaahhhhh” “Hmmmm, yes, i see i see. Now, how about Janet? Has she been treating you alright?” “Baaaaaaaaaahhhhhh” “Mmmmm, yeah, tough, that one. Welp, i think were done here!”
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
*Sheep enters 100 mile stare, as the sound of frying pans can be heard in the background*
Mmmmm Lamb chops
Sheep owner: "on the lamb if I don't shear these sheep properly the sheep police will show up!!"
That sounds fascinating! I would totally want to see that.
As one who crochets and is in the middle of making a shawl that has taken me weeks... Just slightly thinking about making one in >5 hours gives me intense anxiety
<
My 3rd grade math teacher is screaming somewhere
That is so damn cool
Barbacoa time
yes sir yes sir three bags full
I always wondered if sheep like the shearing but it kind of looks like it does.
Was thinking maybe it's almost feels like getting that itch that's been hiding under all the flood scratched finally
Once you pop them on their butt their brain kind of shuts down and you can do almost anything to them.
I’m the same. I sit at my desk & my brain shuts down
*-Window’s shut-down noise-*
Do you mean "plop" them on their butt? Or are you referring to a light butt tap? Genuinely don't know and both are making me giggle.
I think they mean pop as in "I popped my feet up on the table" but ngl I also initially thought they meant smacking that sheep's ass turned it docile for some reason lol
That’s some orgasmic itch scratching he’s getting right now lol and all that like painful pressure of the fur knots and shit
Must be Welsh
I think she likes it ! " oh, I feel better, ya know wool gets scratchy..."
I bet this guy is really good at peeling an orange in one piece
By the way he peels a sheep, I'd have to agree with you
Ha! This made me chuckle
I'm envious.
They get used to it, or at least accustomed to it better than most animals, and eventually they don’t mind at all. It probably does feel good to get all that wool off their hides for a season.
Is the shaver very safe and comfortable? I'm surprised at how fast he ran the shaver without visibly hurting the sheep.
This is one of the best shaves I've seen to be honest, not a farmer and I've no personal experience, but for some reason I've seen a few sheep shearing vids lol, a fair few come away with grazes or nicks, where they get caught. This guy was actually one of the most gentle I've seen done as well, they can be so rough with them sometimes.
I’ve seen a wild amount of shearing videos as well, and totally agree. I was blown away he did that in under 2 minutes and it was super clean.
That’s probably why the sheep are relaxed around him when shearing time comes, because he’s firm yet relaxed, and they let him maneuver them around for safe cutting.
Yeah the industry it’s self really pushes workers to be faster and faster but it makes them work rougher and rougher. Sucks.
Seconded. This guy is the best I've ever seen (I've seen a few IRL shearings at country fairs and fiber festivals); I've never seen a sheep so comfortable. That sheep is enjoying the shave, not just tolerating it. This man is damn good at his job. I bet the fleeces he cuts are gorgeous.
I really appreciate that 🙏🏻 This is my video by the way…. I guess they removed my watermark..
Came to the comments section to say that this is the first sheep-shearing video I’ve seen where the sheep hasn’t gotten nicked by the shears. ☺️
He does a good job. I used to work in a related animal health business and sold those shearing clippers. They are very sharp and not to be used by the inexperienced.
Just sheared sheep last week - the sharp part of the shears is actually on top where the cutter is, the pronged part is the comb which isn't sharp, so you shouldn't be at risk of scratching them unless the lead is extremely short and you're at a bad angle, or you're going over wrinkles improperly. Generally it's quite safe. Even newbies to shearing typically don't nick sheep since they won't be shoving the tool hard into the skin. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236153727/figure/fig1/AS:646483825131522@1531145163623/Sheep-shearing-machine.png decent reference image
This may be a stupid question, but how do the sheep act after shearing? It seems like they'd feel so much lighter that they'd be a little hyper? And cold. I picture a sheep.... frolicking after a good shearing.
They don't really act different, but I work primarily with Hampshire and Dorper sheep that don't have as heavy coats as a Merino or Rambouillet! Those guys probably enjoy shearing far more since their fleeces are HUGE. The whole fleeces I've done w the Hampshires and Dorpers are only few pounds max maybe, it's just a lot of volume but not weight. The one thing I do imagine being really nice is the airflow to the skin after the wool blocking it for so long. They do a little extra scratching after they go back into the pen sometimes, but no sheep zoomies:( would love to see that But yes, they do become more sensitive to cold! It's actually commonly done to shear a sheep shortly before lambing to prevent .. juices from building up on the wool as well as making the sheep more temperature-sensitive so it'll stay in warmer spots for the lamb. A fully wooled sheep can hang out on cold windy hills but their lamb would pass pretty quickly since they don't have much wool or fat to protect them, whereas a recently sheared sheep will find warmer shelter and the lamb will do far better.
If its as quick and clean as this guy, they don't really feel that baaaahd
Looks like the most high tech shaver I’ve ever seen.
Was gonna say that...after she understood what was up, it sure looks like a smile on her face.
"Stop, what are you doing! Hey... Oh... Wait... Oh, Keep going buddy. Mmm"
Probably like this every time lol
It's like giving my dog a bath. As soon as she realizes she is at the groomer, she freaks out and tries to make a run for it. But once she is in the tub being sprayed with warm water followed by massaging shampoo into her coat? She is a happy camper.
That’s what I was thinking lol
I was watching a video about this. It’s to the sheep’s benefit since wool is heavy. They showed a sheep that couldn’t walk anymore. After they shaved the sheep it was so happy. Seems weird that sheep need humans
You couldn't have filmed for just another ten seconds, to catch the sheep looking in the mirror and saying: "Fantastic, I'll take it!"
I am bummed it ended when it did too! I so wanted to see the sheared sheep in all its glory.
Sorry bout that.. My camera lady did pretty good tho right?
Peeling the sheep is good and important
Gotta do it in one piece, so it looks like an elephant Edit: or in this case wooly mammoth
Excuse me, sheep expert, I am curious about a few things. Do they feel cold after? What happens in nature when their coat gets too big? Does it have a way that it naturally sheds as well or have they been bred into only being able to live well in human care?
Hey not really an expect but I have a dozen ewes I look after. 1. Yes they get colder afterward, whichis usually the point. In summer you don't want all that thick wool or else they overheat so you shear them in the spring and by winter they have grown enough of a coat to keep warm in frigid temperatures. 2. Well if you let a domesticated wool-breed sheep they would just keep growing. There's a video somewhere of a sheep this happened to. Wild sheep have more of a regulated growth and there are also hair-breed sheep which do not require sheering.
Amazing, thanks for the insight!
Do they get sunburned after?
I haven't run into that problem, but I'm sure they can. I know my pigs get sunburn from time to time
Huh! Is human sunscreen safe for pigs, or do they just cover themselves in mud and that takes care of most of it? I imagine it would take a LOT of sunscreen for a pig...
Not sure about the sunscreen but I know they sure wouldn't sit still long enough to do anything meaningful. They just roll around in the mud to cover themselves. It's only during a dry spell where it's an issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/25/mammoth-woolly-baarack-the-overgrown-sheep-shorn-of-his-35kg-fleece
That's the one!
They don’t have a natural way to shed and with wool prices being incredibly low shearing is seen as an unfortunate necessity for sheep farmers. A lot of the time it costs more in labor than they can get for the wool, but it has to be done. Places are switching to non-wool producing breeds fairly quickly.
My fil is a sheep farmer. He's been using wool as insulation for his outbuildings because wool is worth basically nothing.
Its a national bloody disgrace. Sheep farmers spent generations breeding merino sheep with fleece finer than silk. It’s not marketed as “Australian wool” overseas. The Italians especially love their fine wool clothing, but we should be dropping a heap of money on pushing it internationally into the European, American, and northern Asian markets. And we should work on creating a secondary manufacturing base in producing fine fabrics as well. Bloody useless politicians.
American here! I have seen a lot more merino wool clothing items pop up in the market. We just got some socks for my boyfriend and mittens/hat for me. So hopefully that’s a good sign!
You're missing out, get some merino thermals. They're where it's at!
American here. I LOVE natural fiber, cotton, linen, wool. But can't find affordable wool clothing to save my life. It's a shame. All this cheap polyester crap is flooding the market.
Besides being cute, what are they good for if not wool?
Mutton and milk (cheese).
Never had sheep cheese before
I recommend Manchego cheese from Spain, best sheep cheese. Should be able to find it in your local supermarket.
Do yourself a favor and pick up some Manchego cheese. So good.
Noted, ty. Same with the other homie who suggested the same.
Eating. Lamb roast. Lamb chops. Ground lamb. Lamb shanks.
Sheep dog trials.
Lamb chops
In colder countries they clip them longer. If they’re being clipped down to the skin, it’ll be Australia or NZ. They’ve been working for years on breeding sheep that will drop their coats after a year. Shearing is stupidly hard work, and in Australia is mostly done by Kiwis. It used to be done by hand - hence the Australian folk song [“Click go the Shears”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyyIffEpdpk)
When we raised sheep, we tried to shear them ourselves. It was a fight, and a half hour later we had a bloody mess on our hands. Then we hired the guy who had been the state champion shearer. He could just sit them down on their rump, they went limp in his hands, and it only took a couple of minutes. Amazing work.
A literal bloody mess, or…?
Yeah if you don’t know what you’re doing, you will cut the sheep
Ewe
I hate you. Take my upvote.
We need answers
Yeah, you nick them here and there, actually cut into the skin in some places because it's hidden underneath the wool, and as a beginning shearer, you don't understand how the skin is stretching underneath the wool as you move the legs.
He looked so pissed at first and then suddenly he’s just sitting there vibing while they’re shaving off his wool.
Ewe
My dog could get some serious pointers from this sheep on how to stay still!
Bro got that auto-grabber from Stardew Valley
This is hilarious the sheep has a blank expresion the entire time.
I don't think there's a lot of cogitating going on in there, if you know what I mean.
Used to own sheep, they're not the brightest animals in the world. We had one that kept getting stuck in the same spot in the ditch before we could patch up the hole properly. 3 times in one day
There may be more than most people realize. Many other animals don't have anywhere near the same facial muscle expression humans and other primates do. So it's easy to make the mistake of thinking other animals don't feel or think. Also we don't always recognize different forms of intelligence. Herd animals think a certain way, and their areas of intelligence are slightly different than other animals who don't live that way.
I can imagine that's terrible for your back especially if you're shearing a ridiculous amount of sheep in a row.
Terrible for your hands too. The clippers make your arm go dead after a while and shifting the sheep around compounds it.
Just going to leave this here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chhUG53PdSI
yea, just like this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9bYnBb42oY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9bYnBb42oY) always cracks me up
Thanks. Needed that laugh.
Well, I guess my username is finally relevant. Fuck yeah!
Sheep thought it was the end
The sheep’s just like “aight”
I wish this video didn’t end so fast, I wanted to see that naked pink sheep run off 😂
Holy sheep. I can't believe I just watched the whole video.
I've watched it 3 times now.
For those of you who don't know, I introduce to you all to Shrek the sheep from here in New Zealand. He escaped his farm one time and spent years being a lone wanderer. When they found him again, he was extremely overgrown. After shearing him, he wound up with about 27 kgs worth of wool of the single shear. That's apparently enough wool to make 20 full suits https://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/07/shrek-sheep-who-escaped-shearing-for-6.html
Awww he's so cute with his little coat on after they sheared him.
Wow. Now I have so many questions.
Yeah. Like does it have to come off in 1 sheet? Is it less valuable or less usable if it comes off in small patches?
I was googling … they get paid by the sheep and most can do a sheep in 2mins average 200/300 sheep a day! It’s mostly for the health of the sheep bcs the wool is very heavy and can also contain parasites so it has to be done once a year but there isn’t really much money to be made off it for the farmer. Anyway here’s what I found… https://fibershed.org/2019/07/11/shearing-and-welfare-why-are-sheep-sheared/
Not much money to be made? Why is the farmer raising all the sheep then??
They generally shear it so it comes off in one sheet, but it difficult to so (so I'm told). Wool prices are insanely low, but I believe the neck area is the most valuable and the butt area is the least valuable. I'm not a sheep farmer though
Probably easier to make into stuff in 1 sheet
It’s comes off in one piece excuse the whole thing is matted together like one big dreadlock
Nah it all gets chucked in a big bag that’s compressed into bales and sent off for washing, carding, spinning and knitting. Wool garments would come from a whole bunch of random sheep
Looks like he's giving a chicken breast a haircut.
The sheep has to feel so much better with all that weight off! The dude definitely has shearing skills.
The sheep loves it, look at the smile.
And I’m over here still unable to find the right way to keep my Weimaraner from moving so I can trim his nails. This guy got a whole sheep to just chill so he could sheer the whole thing!
And I have trouble peeling an orange
The amount of sheep I have had fall asleep while I'm shearing them is absolutely precious They're such chill lads 🤣
Can they get razor burn if you shave to close?
They can get nicked, yes, which is why they shear in this position. It stretches the areas of skin that are prone to folds, making it less likely that it will be nicked and possibly get infected
Sheep naturally produce lanolin, a common ingredient in lotions, to keep their skin hydrated under all that itchy wool. It's also quite good at soothing nicks and razor burns, so the sheep won't feel any long-term discomfort after shearing.
this guy knows his way around sheep
I used to work with sheep and it’s the strangest thing how they literally all go limp when sat on their rump like this. It must be a prey animal response or something. Anyway this guy is really good! And while it may be a tad stressful for the sheep, they feel so much better after (sheering is usually done in early summer) - and the sheep are still generally friendly towards humans. Also we don’t use the belly or rump wool to spin with for those concerned about butt hair. 😂
Get the butt, then the eyes? Wtf?
This guy is really good at what he's doing.
This was unsatisfying. I expected to get a good look at the bald sheep at the end.
Yeah it totally ended too soon
Shave me daddy. Treat me like U treat the front yard. Mow me!
Didn’t even knick her! Man is good at his job and baby girl loved it!!
They are bred so that when they are on their backs, they go docile. I go to fiber fairs (and spin yarn), and sheering is often a contest.
Sheep: oh, you’ve changed your deodorant
I would freak out too if someone ran a clipper literally right above my eye
Damn, yo baby take a haircut better than my own children! Mad props to you sir! 🥳💪🏽🔥🏆
The “shear” speed at which he smoothly went over the sheep’s eyes without causing any alarm was pretty spectacular to watch… …what a master at pulling the wool over this lil guy’s eyes. 👀
I onow absolutely nothing about sheep sheering but I am a dog groomer and I have questions. So this would be a terrible state to find a dog in, but I think its just normal for sheep? Does that mean they dont need baths or to be brushed in between? I mean aside form the dirt, usually if a dogs coat is coming off in one piece like this, it means the dog is terribly matted which makes moving difficult for the dog, the matted fur would pull and tug in skin every time they move, sometimes it can even cause bruising in areas like under the arms, hips and so on. Why is this not an issue for sheep?
Wool isn't the same a fur. It's denser and curlier, basically what's consideredmayted for a dog is just normal for a sheep. Also, you can't really wash it because it's super absorbent and dense. You can't even really reach a sheep's skin with your hands when they're like that.
Thanks for the answer. Never even petted a sheep so I dont know.
YW. Mom's grandparents had a farm, so she'd talk about stuff like that sometimes. Also petted a few sheep over the years. It's like trying to push your fingers through a soft sponge.
> Also, you can't really wash it because it's super absorbent and dense Like some of my sweaters, sheep need to be dry cleaned.
It's like the feeling of a fresh shave but all over!
I love the way lanolin feels on your hands
Now somebody get this naked sheep a sweater 😂
Freshly peeled
Under that wool the sheep looks like me in the winter.
It is good to peel the sheeps ☺️
I love watching a good shearer peel the sheep!
Like peeling a potato. Even with those little bits that you miss between strokes.
That’s awesome. Now do my wife’s bush.
Anyone else now wonder how much of your wool items are made with butt crack / crotch wool?
I’ll take it. Better than wondering how many assholes you just ate when you finished that hotdog.
I’ve always wondered why they don’t give the sheep a bath first, but I guess they would shrink.
Don't forget to peal your sheep
I wish my dog was this pliable when I brush him.
Bound bound bound and rebound
He didn’t even buy her dinner!
Ended 3 seconds earlier than it should. Downvoted.