This article is reprinted, with permission, from The Shepherd, 7 April 07 issue.

Lately what is making me so mad my hair is about to catch on fire is the notion that there are “ethical” issues with using wool.

Most of us need to wear clothing - - for warmth, modesty or fashion. That clothing needs to be made of some type of fiber. Fibers can be man-made such as nylon, acrylic or polypropylene (all made from crude oil), or highly processed fibers that originally came from plants, wood pulp, or other cellulose such as rayon, Ingeo (which some claim has low dye uptake, poor colorfastness and melts at 170 degrees F), Soysilk (made from by-products of tofu and soy milk production previously used as animal feeds) and Sea Cell. Then there are the natural plant fibers such as hemp, linen and cotton.

Most of the plant and man-made fibers require some powerful chemicals to dye them pretty colors. Wool on the other hand can be dyed permanently with food safe colors - - think Kool Aid and Easter egg dyes plus diluted vinegar.

Wool does not need to be processed using anything but dishwashing liquid - - not the stuff you put in dishwashers, the soap you use to wash dishes by hand. Wool can be processed using harsh chemicals and toxic dyes, but it doesn’t have to be.

Recently a young person informed me that she was a vegetarian because animals eat grains that could be eaten by people. Dry dog food is mostly corn or wheat based. Maybe we shouldn’t ……. Nope, not gonna go there. I pointed out that she could not eat the hay she had just been feeding our sheep, nor could she eat grass.

Grain is only used for part of the production cycle of ruminants such as cattle and sheep. Until the day comes when humans can digest hay and grass, production of beef and lamb needs to be promoted as reasonable use of land that is not good for crop farming.

We saw what happened in the days of the Dust Bowl when land that is suitable for grazing was plowed up for crops.  Some folks grow grass to feed lawnmowers. I grow grass to feed sheep. The sheep feed other families and provide wool for clothing.

The other thing about wool is that it is recyclable and biodegradable. The often misused term “virgin wool” means wool that is shorn from the sheep, washed and carded and has not been recycled or reprocessed. Wool fabrics that have outlived their usefulness can be reprocessed into new yarns and fabrics.

Some folks delight in rescuing 100% wool sweaters from thrift shops and raveling them to recover the yarn to re-use and even resell.

Being a shepherd is about the fourth oldest profession, right after hunting, gathering and, well, ah.., …you know. Before recorded history, about 10,000 years ago, people had sheep and then when history was invented, sheep played a major part from the Bible to the Golden Fleece. From the wars between England and Spain to European settlers on this continent, sheep and wool were very important. Almost every early colonial American town had a carding mill to prepare wool for spinning. The carding mills came along right after the lumber and grain mills.

Issues raised by one animal rights group regarding sheep include mulesing (an Australian issue), tail docking and castrating without anesthesia and shearing. Guess they have never heard of naturally short-tailed sheep or the ethnic market that doesn’t want a castrated lamb. Still another issue raised by the Save the Sheep website, is ear tagging. One wonders how many humans received anesthesia to have their ears pierced. The website doesn’t stop with wool, but decries the use of all animal fiber (from alpacas, llamas, cashmere and mohair goats, angora rabbits), claiming that all animals that get haircuts are tortured in a bloody process. They somehow have overlooked then new chitin derived fiber made from shells of crustaceans.

Part of the animal rights community pretend sheep don’t need to be shorn - - that they would shed normally. We know only hair sheep and some primitive breeds such as Shetland sheep shed their wool. Another bunch think you have to kill sheep to get their wool. Still others believe sheep are raised in factory farms. According to NASS statistics, of the 69,000 US families who had one or more sheep on their place at any time during 2006, over 90% had 99 or fewer sheep. Since it would take several hundred sheep to make enough money to support a family, it is obvious that the majority of shepherds in the USA have sheep as a hobby or part-time income. Sheep in the USA spend most of their lives outdoors on pasture or grazing on rangelands.

Animal rights groups want people to believe that one is saving the lives of sheep if sheep are not raised for wool or meat. In reality, if people do not want to eat sheep or wear wool, the sheep that exist today will either be killed or not replaced when they die naturally.

Shepherds need to put more effort into promoting wool as a socially responsible, 100% natural, locally produced, sustainable, recyclable, bio-degradable, eco-friendly product. And since it truly is all those things, maybe we should charge more for it!