PETA Is A Joke
Iām sorry, but this is so fucking stupid. PETA is claiming that this is what a sheep looks like after it has been sheared. In case you were wondering, this is what a sheep ACTUALLY looks like after it has been sheared:
And that isnāt some ābest caseā scenario, believe me, I live in a place that has more sheep than people, and all sheared sheep look like that. It does not hurt the animal at all, aside from perhaps the odd slip with the shears resulting in a minor graze. In fact, shearing sheep is necessary for their wellbeing, because domesticated sheep do not shed their wool like a non domesticated sheep would, which can to them looking like this:
This is Shrek, yes, that is actually his name, notice how you canāt see his legs or face? Thatās not good. He is a sheep who escaped his field and went wandering for six years, resulting in a sixty pound fleece. This is actually dangerous because it can cause overheating and if they get on their back the weight stops them from getting up again, they can die from this. PETA really cares about money and attention more than animals.
So yeah, fuck PETA, buy woolā¦and while youāre at it buy some goddamn honey because the bees need the help.
After Shrek was sheared:
HES SMILING
I legitimately teared up at this
ACTUALLY PETA HAS A POINT
Shrek is cute and all but the rest of this post is BULLSHIT. Wool is not humane, it is not ethical. While the picture used by PETA may be a slight exaggeration, it is not so far from the truth. Of course not all sheep are treated badly, but the COMMON INDUSTRIAL shearing process is TERRIFYING for sheep. During shearing, sheep are pinned down and, when they resist or struggle, shearers will hit and stomp on them and stand on their heads to keep them still. Most workers who shear sheep are paid by the sheep and not by the hour. They rush through their work, often nicking or completely cutting off ears, tails and pieces of skin in the process:
These gaping wounds are then sewn up without the use of any anesthetics. Sounds bad? It gets even worse: In order to prevent the excess attraction of flies and a condition called flystrike, the wool industry practices āmulesingā. This is a procedure in which part of a sheepās flesh is cut off of his or her hindquarters without anesthesia:
The most insane part of this practice is that itās used to prevent flystrike, or maggot infestation, but the resulting wound form the procedure can itself attract maggots and flies and cause deadly infections.Ā And the best is yet to come: Sheep are selectively bred to have wrinkled skin so that they have more skin and thus produce more wool.Ā SO THE ONLY FUCKING REASON THAT SHREK WAS IN DANGER OF DYING FROM HIS ENORMOUS FLEECE IS BECAUSE HUMANS MADE HIM THAT WAY!!!Ā
So please, stop being ignorant, do some actual research before you post and most importantly STOP BUYING WOOL AND STOP SUPPORTING THIS CRUEL INDUSTRY! My resource for this post plusĀ more info:Ā http://bitesizevegan.com/ethics-and-morality/is-wool-vegan-is-it-humane/
While there are abusive shearers (because there are abusive people) it would be very difficult to cause significant damage with clippers, theyāre essentially the same as hair clippers for humans. So is it possible to inflict a graze with them? Yes. Can you cause āgaping woundsā? No.
Mulesing is one of many options for preventing flystrike, it is the most extreme and the least recommended, and is even illegal in some areas. Farmers will mostly use much less invasive and damaging options first, if they ever use mulesing, which is still more preferable to flystrike.
Only one breed of sheep has wrinkled skin, a breed of domestic sheep, which I specified in my post.
You might not want to take all your information from a biased source.
Petaās methods are ridiculous. How the hell are these idiots still around?
Oh, sure, letās campaign to stop people from buying one of the worldās most durable, versatile, weather resistant, and sustainable fabrics - by making them feel guilty and inhumane - AND put shepherds out of business, because there are a few psychos (who donāt even take care of their product, therefore their bottom line) who are doing it wrong. Yeah, take that up with the consumer instead of addressing the actual problem, where it exists.Ā Great idea.
NO, sheep shearing is NOT cruel. There isnāt much that can be done about livestockās fear of being separated from the herd, of individual attention from humans, and of noisy machines, so shearing them as quickly as possible is the humane and merciful thing to do. It would be much too dangerous to drug them every time or anything like that. Sheep are very tough, and it only takes a minute or two to shear, even single handedly - without cutting the skin. It is actually far safer and more humane to restrain a flailing sheep (yes, even via stepping on them) than it is to let them flail, basically guaranteeing a massive and painful cut or broken bone(s) or other injury/injuries, and itās far safer to restrain them than to leave them unshorn and suffering under the weight and heat of all that wool.
Sheep skin is quite thick, so they actually rarely feel most nicks, and even nicked sheep bounce out of the barn happy or completely unaffected. Itās a couple minutes of mild discomfort once a year. But itās quite easy to shear a sheep without nicking or cutting them at all, and the shearer really only has to hold the animalās head between his knees to calm it. If there is a nick, they should be treating it, though, and most probably do at least dab on some sheep-osporin or something. Itās a risk to the quality of the product not to take care of your sheepās skin, so no decent businessman would ignore it given any choice.
Boycotting wool would have HORRIBLE effects for SHEEP. How do these people not think for just a minute what would really happen if people bought their bullshit? What do they think, I wonder, would happen if people suddenly stopped buying wool? I would very much like to know what they think their best case scenario is.
Because I can only see things getting WORSE for the SHEEP, the very animals they claim to want to help. If people stopped buying wool, the price of wool would tank, and the farmersā incomes would tank with it. Farmers would have to start cutting corners. Theyād probably start with switching to cheaper, lower quality feed. They would have to shear more cheaply and quickly, likely causing actual damage and injury. Theyād be forced to fire their employees, leaving fewer people to help out on the farm, meaning problems wouldnāt be spotted quickly, solutions would take much longer, and the sheep would suffer for it. They probably wouldnāt be able to get around to taking care of the sheepās feet often enough. Theyād probably end up having to fire their shearers and do it themselves - with no ranch hands, remember - meaning the sheep would end up being shorn by overworked, rushed, and inexperienced farmers who might ACTUALLY injure them in the process, from cuts and broken bones due to flailing or from who knows what awful things.
And with no money, the injured sheep would more likely be shot with a 50 cent bullet than treated by a vet for hundreds of dollars. Farmers might have to stop buying non-emergency meds and treatments, so there goes vaccination, there goes pest preventative - which could lead to actually mulesing, even where illegal - there goes regular check-ups. Farmers may have to sell off land to pay the bills, crowding in their sheep. And theyād have to eventually sell off the sheep themselves, to fuck knows who - worse shepherds? or just butchers? Probably not many shepherds buying if they canāt sell wool. The farmers might have to just fucking cull them. When thereās nothing left, theyād end up changing careers and selling off the entire farm, sheep and allā¦ and then what happens to those animals?
So yeah, tell me how boycotting wool benefits sheep?
I wonder what peta would propose we do with all the millions and millions of homeless sheep, if their ignorant plan were somehow to work, people stopped buying wool, and sheep farms went under en masse?
Does Peta have millions of acres of grazing pasture where they would let millions of sheep roam free and unshorn? Do they have millions of friends sitting on loads of acreage who are willing to take on more mouths to feed and more work, knowing thereās no chance of recouping a dime? Or would Peta do as they usually do - and this is where Iād place my bet - when theyāve āliberatedā too many animals: just fucking kill them?
Peta doesnāt really care about these animals. If they did, they might try addressing the actual problem, instead of spending money on bullying consumers into feeling bad. They could instead look into safety guards on the clippers. They could research safer methods of shearing. They could spend the money they put into those absurd and disingenuous ads on sending first aid kits to farmers - who arenāt exactly known for topping out the Fortune 500. They could find the real offenders and teach them safer methods, or use the law to intervene. Yeah, if peta actually cared about animals and not just throwing their weight around, surely they could find some way to show it.
I will not be boycotting wool. You should not, either.
And by the way, FUCK PETA.
Do I really have to go into all of this? I think I've covered all of these issues by now.
