Wool From Loved Sheep

[Forest Nymph]

Something that has occurred to me about wool is that in spring/summer sheep really don't need it. It's like how you would get a dog with a heavy coat shaved for his own comfort. Even people who have sheep in sanctuaries have to shave those sheep.

So ...how is this not vegan? How is more vegan or ethical in any way to throw perfectly good wool out?

I'm not defending the wool industry that hurts sheep. I'm talking specifically about sheep who are shorn anyway for their own good.

 

[Raven]

I've always hated the feeling of wool since I was a kid so I wouldn't buy wool products. I have known some vegans who buy and use second hand wool.

I have taken non-vegan vitamin D, though. I suppose I see that more like taking medication which I do take if I need to.

 

[shyvas]

Something that has occurred to me about wool is that in spring/summer sheep really don't need it. It's like how you would get a dog with a heavy coat shaved for his own comfort. Even people who have sheep in sanctuaries have to shave those sheep.

So ...how is this not vegan? How is more vegan or ethical in any way to throw perfectly good wool out?

I'm not defending the wool industry that hurts sheep. I'm talking specifically about sheep who are shorn anyway for their own good.

I think that it is the wool industry and the horrific sheep farms that are not vegan.

 

[Veganite]

I think that it is the wool industry and the horrific sheep farms that are not vegan.

I think you are spot on.

I can't remember which documentary I watched, but it was truly horrific. Those poor animals were not treated nicely, from my recollection of the film. They're sheared, quite often very aggressively, and often leaving painful wounds that are prone to infections.

When you only have a couple sheep to shear in a hobby farm setting, I'm sure it can be done with much more care, but when they're lined up in an assembly line by the hundreds, if not thousands, time is of the essence.

So you have to ask yourself, where would most wool products come from? Probably not from someone's hobby farm.



*

 

[Poppy]

I would have no personal problem using wool from a pet, although I understand it is quite the process to get the shorn wool to the point where it can be used for knitting. Like eggs from pet hens, though, the harm it does is in encouraging the use of wool to begin with. It requires the acceptance of wool as a necessary or desired material for human desires. Once we as a species decide that an animal can benefit us in some way or another - food, warmth, entertainment, travel, strength, etc…we abuse the heck out of it. And so while someone who has a pet sheep may shear it and use its wool to knit herself a sweater, people admiring that sweater will find a way to attain a similar one with likely far less concern about the animal from which it came.

eta: I'm sure the shorn wool can be used for non-human needs - bedding for other animals, especially those injured or orphaned comes immediately to mind.

 

[silva]

It all comes down to things being desirable and sought after. A good wool item and last forever, and be extremely warm and water repellent.
When I was young I loved seafaring books, and romantised about living in a fishing village, Nova Scotia, and raise sheep, living in a small hut amongst a rocky landscape
I had a few wool sweaters I'd gotten from thrift stores, and took such good care of them- they were my prize. When I moved out from my mothers place and left most of my things, I came back to find that she'd washed them. They had turned into super thick, dense, miniatures of what they were.
Anyway, it is fine to shear sheep, or your childrens hair, and use it for your needs. It's only when it's not a symbiotic give and take that things become wrong.
Of course sheep have been interbred to have unnaturally fast growing wool which is abhorrent in itself.