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> What happens to the mutton-aged sheep here? I thought that was a good question that unfortunately the article didn't appear to answer. Similarly to how leath
by hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> What happens to the mutton-aged sheep here?
I thought that was a good question that unfortunately the article didn't appear to answer. Similarly to how leather is essentially a byproduct of the beef industry, I'd expect that at least the reverse would be true with sheep, that mutton would be a byproduct of the wool industry. So what happens with older sheep once their shearing days are over?
- GlenTheMachine 3y agoDogfood, mostly. And other products where you need protein but taste either doesn't matter, or can be completely overwhelmed by spices. There isn't very much of a wool industry in the United States. Australia and New Zealand have such large economies of scale that in the US, you literally lose money just by paying someone to shear your sheep. The wool is worth less than the shearer's per-fleece fee. So the problem of "where do all the old sheep go" isn't a very big one. I expect that either they eat quite a lot of mutton in Australia, or they sell that mutton on markets where it is desirable. But I don't have any data or experience to back that up.