This sheep hasn't been shorn for years. The poor thing was found in the wild. He doesn't look too comfy, so I'm thinking that wool clothing isn't too bad and shearing doesn't harm the sheep. It looks like they might need to be shorn. I'm not trying to pick a fight, I haven't worn wool for awhile now, but when I saw this pic, it made me wonder if I should rethink this.
You do realise that without years of genetic manipulation sheep would never produce that much wool. Sure the sheep might be uncomfortable. I expect those on sheep farms who are castrated without pain relief, have chunks carved out of them to prevent maggots, are almost poisoned with sheep dip etc aren't terribly content eithier. So I shall continue to pass on the wool.
sheep are domesticated animals. if sheep are no longer demanded for wool and/or mutton, then they will no longer be bred, so there will be few wild, unshorn sheep roaming about. those that were still in existence would not be owned by cruel factory farms, but instead by individuals who would gently shear their sheep when it was necessary. i would only wear wool that was obtained in such a humane manner- which rules out the commercial stuff. it's the same as the question, "if no one eats cows anymore, what would we do with them all?" well... there simply would not be very many more.
Hmmm. Was just looking at Bugmans's public profile, and this bit jumped out as me as kinda ironic..... Viewing Thread Masturbation Techniques @ 09:01 PM
Um, yeah, except the farmers don't just gently take the sheep who sits in a green field all day and shave it. It's called factory farming, my friend, and it's not a good thing. http://www.woolisbaad.com/
What are you talking about? Most wool in the world comes from Australia.Somebody did try keeping some sheep permanetly in a shed and bring in feed.He was hoping to get a premium price for the wool.When it came to auctioning the wool, the bidding reached no where near the reserve price.In other words, it was a completly uncommercial proposition. As far as I know all other wool comes from free range sheep.Australia is predominatly wool sheep and New Zealand is predominatly meat sheep. BTW Sunburst, you have not answered my last PM. In any case what are you supposed to wear?Cotton is the most polluting crop in the world.GE cotton is claimed to be less polluting.The crude oil that synthetics are made from is going to run out one of these days.Sometimes it is too cold to go nude.
yes, most wool is from free-range sheep, however when they are sheared it is done in a very fast manner that often injures them. not only that, but by supporting the wool industry, you are also supporting the mutton industry. i agree that with the way this world is, it is difficult to avoid causing problems with anything we buy. but wool is directly cruel. i avoid that.
wool isnt factory farmed(if at all..most wool is from free-range) any more then cotton is. Like the other poster said...cotton and non-animal derived materials are more destructive to the environment and wild animals. Have you even seen the sludge that comes from factories that produces pleather and wool altenatives?? The sludge that poors into our ground water? The sludge that kills fish, rodents, amphibians and contributes to cancer in people? The billowing black smoke that comes from the stacks of those factories that causes smog and globel warming and emphisema. But I guess all that is ok as long as a sheep doesnt get shaved eh? It's just collateral damage to people like you...like the bunnies shredded by soybean combines...their deaths mean nothing because a cow or a chicken might get saved. I'd rather support the free-range wool industry then the mock-wool industry.
LOL What even my not wearing wool? Oh well please yourself. Life for a sheep really isn't that cheerful. It's impossible to prevent all enviromental damage. I'm just doing my bit to avoid suffering, not going to solve everything but it's a start.
Cynical, do your research before you attack pleather for polluting. Okay, argue with news-releases then. "Although some leathermakers deceptively tout their products as "eco-friendly," turning skin into leather also requires massive amounts of energy and dangerous chemicals, including mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of them cyanide-based. Most leather produced in the U.S. is chrome-tanned; all wastes containing chromium are considered hazardous by the EPA. Tannery effluent contains large amounts of pollutants, such as salt, lime sludge, sulfides, and acids. The process of tanning stabilizes the collagen or protein fibers in skins so that they actually stop biodegrading so that leather doesn't rot right off your feet. Additionally, to raise the animals whose skin eventually becomes leather, trees are cleared to create pastureland, vast quantities of water are used, and feedlot and dairy-farm runoff create a major source of water pollution. Huge amounts of fossil fuels are consumed in livestock production. (By contrast, plastic wearables account for only a fraction of the petroleum used in the U.S.) People who work in and live near tanneries suffer too. Many are dying from cancer caused by exposure to toxic chemicals used to process and dye the leather. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukemia among residents in an area near one tannery in Kentucky was five times the U.S. average. Arsenic, a common tannery chemical, has long been associated with lung cancer in workers who are exposed to it on a regular basis. Studies of leather-tannery workers in Sweden and Italy found cancer risks "between 20% and 50% above [those] expected." " Yeah, I think pleather is a little less dangerous. Also, it doesn't take any lives (and don't go on and on about the fact that buliding the factories that producve it kill trees and animals, so does your house, so do leathe rmills/tanneries, and so does nearly every single buidling. It's impossible to be entirely vegan, we all know it.). Pleather is made of the same stuff your tires, lawn chairs, ziploc baggies, grocery bags, etc. are. In comparison, yes it can do damage to the environment, but a hell of a lot less than leather factories. The excrement from cows pollutes A LOT of land, the tannery toxins get in the sdoil, water, and air, and so on.
"In Australia, the most commonly raised sheep are Merinos, specifically bred to have wrinkly skin, which means more wool per animal. This unnatural overload of wool causes animals to die of heat exhaustion during hot months, and the wrinkles also collect urine and moisture. Attracted to the moisture, flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, and the hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. To prevent “flystrike,” Australian ranchers perform a barbaric operation—mulesing—or carving huge strips of flesh off the backs of unanesthetized lambs’ legs and around their tails. This is done to cause smooth, scarred skin that won’t harbor fly eggs, yet the bloody wounds often get flystrike before they heal.3 Within weeks of birth, lambs’ ears are hole-punched, their tails are chopped off, and the males are castrated without anesthetics. Male lambs are castrated when between 2 and 8 weeks old, with a rubber ring used to cut off blood supply—one of the most painful methods of castration possible.4 Every year, hundreds of lambs die before the age of 8 weeks from exposure or starvation, and mature sheep die every year from disease, lack of shelter, and neglect.5 Faced with so much death and disease, the rational solution would be to reduce the number of sheep so as to maintain them decently. Instead, sheep are bred to bear more lambs to offset the deaths." I am quite aware that not all places that produce wool or shear sheep are like this, some might me quite humane, but the point is, you don't know whether your wool sweater comes from a small home-owned farm or a huge factory farm like this, so unless you do, you have no proof that what you're buying is animal-friendly or a living hell for thousands.
