4 ms·
Sheep shearing is brutal for the sheep, at least in a commercial setting where time is money. They take half the sheep's skin off too.
by uhtred 3y ago
Sheep shearing is brutal for the sheep, at least in a commercial setting where time is money. They take half the sheep's skin off too.
- WorkerBee28474 3y agoNo it's not. No it doesn't. You're just making that up. If you want to make an extraordinary claim, provide evidence.
- nightfly 3y agoThey aren't making it up, but ar propogating a lie they've seen elsewhere
- uhtred 3y agoA lie, really? Check yourself. https://www.woolfacts.com/ https://www.woolfacts.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/secret-videos-reveal-workers-beating-sheep-on-english-and-scottish-farms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/secret-v... https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/horrific-footage-emerges-claiming-to-show-scottish-shearers-punching-sheep-in-the-face-558505 https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/horrific-footage-e... https://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/8thday/the-violent-sheep-wool-shearing-process-1502759047.html https://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/8thday/the-violent-...
- nightfly 3y agoMy family raised sheep for like 10 years...
- sillystuff 3y agoI had no "sheep knowledge" before some quick googling... They are not making it up, extreme gratuitous cruelty has been documented in commercial sheep shearing if you care. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeKbMRlJUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeKbMRlJUU That video link was from: https://www.woolfacts.com/wool-and-animal-welfare/shearing/ https://www.woolfacts.com/wool-and-animal-welfare/shearing/ That article goes on to state that the same investigators uncovered cruelty at 117 separate operations, so does not appear to be an isolated incident by, "a few bad apples".
- thebooktocome 3y agoThis has nothing to do with a homespun wool contest. This isn’t a commercial setting. As your link mentions, these sheep have been selectively bred to require shearing.
- Gordonjcp 3y agoActually no, the fact that you can shear sheep comes out of the fact that sheep have evolved to shed their wool. When it gets into warmer weather and it's time to shear them, their wool starts to thin, and you get a "rise" - a layer about 5-8mm deep where the individual hairs are about half of their normal thickness. In the wild, these hairs would break and the sheep would shed all its wool in great chunks, but it also makes it a lot easier to shear. If you've tried cutting the "normal" fleece with hand shears you'll know how hard it is, and it will absolutely destroy mechanical clippers. That's not to say that sheep haven't been selectively bred to have a good rise, as well as other desirable characteristics - it's not dog breeding, no-one is trying to select for a deformed snuffly nose to please a dog show judge - but the rise was there before they were domesticated, or they likely wouldn't have survived.
- uhtred 3y agoThey have been selectively bred to produce much more wool than is natural, for human benefit. Their ancestors did not require shearing by humans to survive. If you believe otherwise you're an idiot.
- Gordonjcp 3y agoNot really, no. If you look at wild sheep, you'll see they do just the very same thing. Scottish Blackface are about as close to wild as you can get, and they're famed for their wool.
- archgoon 3y agoThere are over a hundred thousand sheep farms in the US alone. That's 117 in 6 countries, what percentage of farms had bad practices and how were the ones that were audited chosen? Given that this is PETA, I would not assume good faith here. Finally, the original poster makes a universal claim about the nature of sheep farming, which your above anecdotes do nothing to support.
- uhtred 3y agosillystuff provided the evidence for me, so no I'm not making it up. ha ha bad luck old chum. Yes your wool sweaters are cruel.
- pugworthy 3y agoThough a bit over the top in claims, I'd agree that yes, injury to the sheep is probably to be expected at some level. From the following... https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-are-the-animal-welfare-issues-with-shearing-of-sheep/ https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-are-the-animal-w... ...there is this quote... "nicks and cuts may occur if the sheep does struggle, or has excessively wrinkled skin or the shearer is distracted or under time pressure" Time pressure - exactly what such a competition would encourage. I'm not saying it happens, but the urge to hurry could certainly lead to such a thing. I mean if winning is the thing, then once the sheep is sheered, who cares about the sheep anymore? It's all about the wool and what you do with it. In 3 hours.
- brnaftr361 3y agoI expect these sheep in particular are probably vetted for the process and well-handled, and thus less anxious during shearing. It can be, and is accomplished with little fuss. [1] They're also judged on the shearing, I suspect that means the "blanket" directly from the sheep, meaning they really want to have a happy sheep. Having said that, animal handling done at any large scale always seems awful to me. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/@rightchoiceshearing/videos https://m.youtube.com/@rightchoiceshearing/videos
- Gordonjcp 3y agoSheep To Shawl Hardcore Edition - it starts *eighteen months* before the day you shear, as you breed the most likely candidates to pick for The Big Day. Six months later lambing, a year after that the contest proper.
- jtbayly 3y agoYou can literally watch a video from the competition at the end of the article, including seeing a portion of a shearing. Fast, and definitely not brutal.
- MandieD 3y agoCompetitions like these raise interest in small-scale, and thus more humane, sheep-raising, as well as awareness of products from their far more expensive wool.
- dylan604 3y agoYeah, cause this looks just like a commercial setting <facepalm> Shearing competitions are pretty common in the world of 4H or other groups for kids. Of course, the animals they are shearing are raised by the kids and they are basically family pets the way they are pampered. Trying to knock what people are doing because of some random holier than though position is just lame
- uhtred 3y agoIt promotes sheep shearing and wool, so not lame to knock it. GFY.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoMaybe it’s propaganda, but the excellent show “Clarkson’s Farm” has sheep shearing in it. It seems good enough to the animals.
- Gordonjcp 3y agoClarkson's Farm is a pretty honest depiction of what it's like for small-to-medium scale farmers in the UK. Except the bit where he made 140 quid profit, most folk make anything like as much as that.
- uhtred 3y ago99% of the world's wool doesn't come from small to medium farms.
- Gordonjcp 3y agoNot these days it doesn't, because the Wool Marketing Board pays five pence per kilo for wool. When you compare what you get selling it with the cost of having it collected and graded, and the current price of diesel, it's cheaper to just fire up the JCB, dig a hole, and bury the fucking stuff.