Does shearing hurt sheep? Or is it actually beneficial?
Sheep and people go a long, long way back together. Since people and sheep started coexisting, some kind of shearing has been around. People definitely benefited from it. What about sheep?
Now we have electric motor shearing machines, before them, there were hand shears. Hand shears are actually used a lot even today. Going even further, long before hand shears, people would hand pull the naturally shedding wool from sheep (rouxing). And even further, before sheep domestication, sheep would get their wool pulled off naturally while they were dragging themselves around rocks and branches. This natural shedding is called molting.
Since we have covered some shearing history for the easy introduction to this post, now let’s focus on the main topic. Does sheep shearing hurt sheep?
Shearing does NOT hurt sheep. Not only it doesn’t hurt sheep, but shearing is also important for the health of the animal. Most sheep are unable to shed naturally, so seasonal shearing is beneficial for the health and hygiene of the animal.