Why can't Vegans use wool?

Question

I have just been approached by a good friend of mine who farms sheep for wool, he has around 350 - 400 at any one time. he was recently accosted, quite violently, by two persons stating they were vegans, and that sheep should not be used in this way.

As the wool is clipped during the hot weather to prevent the animal from dying from heatstroke, why can't the waste material be used?

Or shall we let them die?

PS, we're in Wales UK by the way, a long way from Australia, and Frodo,- Mulesing is carried out to prevent flies from laying their eggs in the dead tissue of undocked tails. Its only done in Aussie and thats being phased out as they have found medication to do the job properly.

Also you must realise that sheep don't originate in this country, they come from southern Asia which can be far colder than here, hence the need for shearing in Summer.

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to answer, it would appear that PETA have a lot to answer for.

I would suggest that for every PETA alledged atrocity there are thousands of regulation compliant activities taking place.

As for best answer, they are all good in their own way, but I have to give the points to Sarah, who at 13 gave us all a chuckle by referring to sheep as 'poor little things', most are bigger than a large dog and would take you off your feet with no bother :o)).

Answer 1

im not againt the use of wool BUT farmers are always really rough with the poor little things i mean gosh they could be a little more gental and caring!

Answer 2

They won't die unless they are purposely brought into an environment where they don't naturally thrive and then the person who brought them there is to blame for their deaths. Your friend sounds like he does treat his sheep well, and I am sorry for what happened to him, but there are plently of wool farmers not like him who cut their sheep and could are less. It is nearly impossible to tell where you are getting that wool coat from, be it a horrible factory in India the Peta videos show, or a nice farmer like your friend, there is just no way and no one should want to take that risk. He is in a business that can be turned into something malice instantly if using the wrong precautions.

Answer 3

vegans don't and won't use anything that's derived of animals so that includes wool.
your friend probably treats his sheep very well so those people who accosted him really shouldn't have done so without checking their facts.

what happens with sheep in the wild? they don't get shorn, so i guess vegans could argue that it's not a natural thing for sheep to be sheared and could impact on their mental well being.

Answer 4

Well, people ask these sort of questions all the time. Similiar to whats wrong with eggs/dairy. Somebody always knows someone who has their own farm and treats the animals well. Sadly this isn't the case in most instances. Wool clothing you find in department stores etc do not come from small farmers who treat their animals well. You would think sheering a sheep shouldn't have to be painful for them. But as you know, when a living being becomes a " mass product", humane treatment is almost always thrown out the window.

"Ram lambs and old "wool" sheep are slaughtered for their meat. Sheep are transported without food or water, in extreme heat and cold. Legs are broken, eyes injured, etc. Sheep are bred to be unnaturally woolly, also unnaturally wrinkly, which causes them to get insect infestations around the tail areas. The farmer's solution to this is the painful cutting away of the flesh around the tail (called mulesing). "Inferior" sheep are killed. When shearing the sheep, they are pinned down violently and sheared roughly. Their skin is cut up. Every year, hundreds of thousands of shorn sheep die from exposure to cold. Natural predators of sheep (wolves, coyotes, eagles, etc.) are poisoned, trapped, and shot. In the U.S., overgrazing of cattle and sheep is turning more than 150 million acres of land to desert. "Natural" wool production uses enormous amounts of resources and energy (to breed, raise, feed, shear, transport, slaughter, etc., the sheep). "


And so you can see there is a difference between the small farmer and the big industries. I think it should be fairly obvious.

Answer 5

Disclaimer about whether or not this is my opinion, but if I had less vegan sympathy, I might just be tempted to say:-
'Because with lack of B12 they are too weak to knit'
The last point though about sheep needing the wool is interesting.
As a not-quite-vegan but would-be environmentalist, though, I don't think I would be supporting replacement of a natural product by chemically manufactured fibres like acrylic which surely consumes resources and spews out all sorts of toxic waste products.
Better recycling of textiles of all types might help

Answer 6

uh, no, the wool is not clipped to prevent the animal from dying. do some research on the way sheep are treated on wool farms, and maybe you'll understand.

Answer 7

Frodo has said it all for me-I think you'll find that sheep in the UK aren't treated much better.

Answer 8

Sheep do not need their wool clipped. Don't you think it unlikely that an animal would evolve developing wool that would kill him unless a helpful human would clip it in the Summer?

From peta.org website:

What’s Wrong With Wool?
Shearing sheep involves more than just a haircut. Sheep need the wool that they naturally produce to protect themselves from temperature extremes.

Because shearers are usually paid by volume rather than by the hour, they often work too fast and disregard the animals’ welfare. Sheep are routinely punched, kicked, and cut during the shearing process.

Much of the world’s wool comes from Australia and New Zealand, where almost 140 million sheep each year undergo a gruesome procedure called mulesing, in which shears are used to slice dinner-plate-sized chunks of skin off the backsides of live animals without anesthetics.

Millions of sheep raised for wool in Australia and New Zealand are shipped to the Middle East for slaughter. These animals are placed on overcrowded, disease-ridden ships with little access to food or water for weeks or even months. During their grueling journeys, they suffer through weather extremes, and temperatures on the ships can exceed 100°F. Many fall ill when they become stuck in feces and are unable to move, and many others are smothered or trampled to death by other sheep.

Intensive sheep farming, especially in Australia, is responsible for the degradation of natural waterways and land habitats and for the emission of greenhouse gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere.

When you buy wool products, it is likely that you are buying wool from sheep who were raised in Australia or New Zealand, and since most wool is routed through China or Italy for processing, product labeling rarely indicates where the wool originated.

Visit SaveTheSheep.com for more information on the wool industry.

Answer 9

Well, I wouldn't be suprised if they were apart of PETA. Ask them if they would rather let the sheep die of heatstroke, or be cool(as in cold), have it's wool cut off, and have the wool to go to some other uses. And tell them that if they were so against animals being killed, why do you want the animals to die. And also tell them to shup up and eat some meat, get a reality on how the cicle of life works, and look up some facts before they get in a fight on how they have no proof that cutting the wool hurts the sheep.

Answer 10

Some vegans are extremists and use their eating habits as an excuse to be violent. Im a veggie and hate animals being killed for food, but would never have a go at anyone because of it.