Shearing of sheep is necessary, for their welfare. But shearing has its risks, for the sheep.
Relevant government bodies, organisations concerned with sheep and sheep welfare, all know thoroughly that shearing of sheep has risks and they state what they are. And they offer information, guidance, and instruction on how matters should be for the full process and concerning how procedures should be in the shearing shed. So, sheep farmers and shepherds, those contracted to shear, cannot pronounce that they do not know how shearing should take place.
The reasons why sheep need to be shorn - ‘Industry Guidance on Shearing for Farmers and Shearing Contractors’, produced by an amalgam of bodies which includes the National Sheep Association, the National Farmers Union [NFU], British Wool, the National Association of Agricultural Contractors [NAAC] - are ‘to help reduce the risk of external parasites and to avoid heat stress’. Obtaining wool is, of course, another reason: but these organisations state firmly; ‘In the main, shearing is carried out to improve animal welfare rather than for the value of the wool.’ The ‘Guidance’ is pretty comprehensive, giving detail of what should be done concerning ‘Presentation of Sheep’, ‘Facilities for Shearing’, ‘Using a Contractor’, ‘Shearers and Shearing’.
In its RSPCA Welfare Standards for Sheep (June 2020) the RSPCA states that the guidance, referred to just above ‘a) must be made available, b) read and understood, and c) implemented, where necessary by those undertaking sheep shearing.’
In the spring of 2019, reporting the appearance of the ‘Guidelines’, Farmers Weekly remarked: ‘The joint guidance, which has been released ahead of this year’s shearing season, comes after animal rights group Peta made allegations of animal cruelty on 25 English farms during shearing last season and released footage of animals being punched.’
The risks to sheep from shearing are: those emanating from the shearing process; those coming from context and surrounding and background circumstances.
Direct risks from shearing are injury. And, as Animal Aid says, ‘the process of shearing … can help to spread diseases between animals, especially those affecting the skin’.
Another risk is a sheep being too cold from shearing. In the section on shearing of its Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock: Sheep, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs [DEFRA] says this:
‘Full use should be made of weather forecasts and shelter to avoid excessive cold stress to newly shorn sheep at whatever time of year shearing is carried out.’ (para 55)
‘Winter shearing is not a suitable practice unless the sheep are housed.’ (para 56)
‘Sheep which were shorn and housed in winter should be turned out to grass in spring only when the fleece has regrown to 15-20mm in length and when weather conditions are favourable. Where adequate shelter is not available, other means should be adopted, such as the provision of straw bales.’ (para 57)
By contrast, a risk can come from heat. Animal Aid warns; ‘recently shorn animals may be exposed to hot sun in markets without shelter.’ In its RSPCA Welfare Standards for Sheep, the RSPCA having discussed cold stress, then goes on to say ‘fleece can also act as insulation against heat, so consideration should equally be given to the potential for heat stroke if shearing is undertaken during periods of hot weather. Sufficient water and shade should be provided to prevent this.’
DEFRA and the RSPCA both articulate the general and generally accepted principle, that, in DEFRA’s words, ‘Every mature sheep should have its fleece removed at least once a year.’ (para 52).
Unsurprisingly, the two bodies - DEFRA and the RSPCA - essentially speak with one voice on shearing matters. On training, DEFRA says (in para 53), ‘Shearers should be experienced, competent and have received adequate training in shearing techniques. Inexperienced trainers should be supervised by suitably competent staff.’ The RSPCA says, ‘Those shearing sheep must have undertaken formal verifiable training to ensure they are appropriately trained and competent’.
Regarding avoidance of injury to sheep during shearing, DEFRA instructs, ‘When shearing, care should be taken not to cut the skin of the sheep. Where a wound does occur, immediate treatment should be given.’ (para 53). The RSPCA also goes into some detail on the subject. It says that ‘care must be taken not to nick or cut the skin’ and continues ‘particular care must be taken not to cut the teats of young female sheep and not to injure the penis/sheath and/or scrotum of ram lambs’. And as well as saying, as DEFRA does, that a wound should have immediate treatment, the RSPCA adds that treatment should be ‘by a veterinary surgeon when necessary’.
And the RSPCA addresses disease spread, saying:
‘Between flocks, to minimise the risk of spreading diseases such as caseous lymphadenitis (CLA) and sheep scab, shearers must: a) clean and disinfect their shearing equipment, and b) change or clean and disinfect their footwear and outer protective clothing.’
The RSPCA Knowledgebase ‘What are the animal welfare issues with shearing of sheep?’ describes things well.
In the document it is observed:
‘Shearing requires sheep to be handled multiple times - mustering, yarding, and penning - which is stressful to sheep. In addition, shearing itself is an acute stressor. The potential for pain is present where sheep are wounded or injured during shearing. Treatment of injuries should be immediate and where shearing wounds are deep and require stitching, the application of a topical pain relief should be considered.’
And in summary it is said in the document:
‘The RSPCA believes the stress experienced by sheep during shearing can be reduced can be reduced by
handling sheep in a low-stress manner
ensuring shearers are trained and competent in best practice technique to reduce the risk of cutting the sheep
requiring shearers to be accredited
ensuring recognised training programs incorporate principles of animal welfare, animal handling and the importance of good stockmanship
ensuring the appropriate treatment of wounds and injuries using pain relief where required
creating an environment in the shearing shed where mistreatment of sheep is not tolerated.’
It is manifest that the shearing process carries risks and dangers to sheep. Some threats to sheep welfare come from context and environment; a lot are direct, at the time of shearing itself. What is obvious, given that sheep’s existence is at the control and decision of humans, is that it is to humans that we must look for responsibility for how the sheep shearing situation is. How and where sheep are treated in the shearing experience is at humans’ choice and determination.
A special dimension of the overall human responsibility in sheep shearing is that ‘outsiders’ frequently feature. For a group of sheep of any much size to be shorn, at the relevant moment, shearers other than a flock’s day-to-day carers will need to be employed. While a sheep owner or shepherd will have interest in their flock, concern for the welfare of all its sheep, will have an investment - of some sort - in the sheep, likely the contract shearer’s most concern will be how to earn the most money from doing shearing. As PETA describes, ‘Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without any regard for welfare of the sheep’. And PETA continues, ‘This hasty and careless shearing leads to frequent injuries, and workers using a needle and thread to sew the worst wounds shut - without any pain relief. Strips of skin - and even teats, tails and ears - are often cut or ripped off during shearing.’
Training, and recognising the need for it to happen, are manifestly key and important towards improvement of the sheep shearing experience, for sheep. In its RSPCA Welfare Standards for Sheep (placed by the statement, quoted above, that ‘Those shearing sheep must have undertaken formal verifiable training to ensure they are appropriately trained and competent’), the RSPCA provides the information ‘Formal verifiable training can be obtained by attending a relevant course awarded/run by British Wool, Lantra and/or an agricultural college/university. This may be an international provider.’
British Wool portrays itself as ‘the approved provider for sheep shearing and wool handling training in the UK’ and says it trains ‘more than 800 people … every year’. It provides two relevant Factsheets. One of these ‘How do we train and accredit shearers?’ explains that courses are a progression of levels: Blue Seal - The basics of shearing for all candidates; ‘Bronze Seal - Shearing your own small flock; Silver Seal - Shearing your own medium to large flock; Gold Seal - Shearing your own large flock or operating as a shearing contractor.’
And it is explained:
‘Courses also include best practice advice across the following key areas:
Presentation of sheep - the importance of careful preparation, effective handling systems and how to use them.
Preparation of the shearing area - creating a safe environment with adequate protection from weather conditions, sufficient light and air circulation.
Preparation of equipment - the importance of maintaining equipment and choosing the right combs for different wool types.
Preparation for the shearer - avoiding muscle strain, ensuring comfort and maintaining bio security compliance.’
On the other relevant Factsheet, ‘Why do we need to shear sheep?’, the answers to that question are given as: improvement of animal welfare; reduction of the risk of parasite infection - for example flystrike; avoiding heat stress.
Towards bringing an improvement to the sheep shearing situation in all its façets, an interesting document is a study (undated, but probably later 2020), by Marie Prebble, for the National Sheep Association Samuel Wharry Memorial Award for the Next Generation, and sponsored by The Company of Merchants of the Staple of England. The study has the title ‘Practical Considerations for Best Practice during Shearing in the UK’. The UK is its focus, and 180 UK farmer responses came from one questionnaire and over 90 UK shearer responses coming from another questionnaire, but the study looks further in the Northern Hemisphere (with first-hand shearing experience having been obtained in France, Iceland, and Norway). In the study’s Conclusion, financial constraints are said to be giving a barrier to best practice happening in shearing. There is this key remark in Conclusion section, ‘When an enterprise is not profitable it is unsurprising to find suboptimal conditions’. And it is stated, ‘farmers are … frustrated by the very low price paid for …wool’. Improvements in such as maintaining biosecurity, reduction of handling stress, having best possible handling facilities, attaining higher animal welfare standards, need financial support and encouragement. Noted is ‘the importance of communication between farmers and shearing contractors, and the need for shared responsibility for implementing and maintaining for best practice’.
The achievement of best practice in shearing seems not likely to be entirely brought about by will to ‘do best’ - solely. Nor does it seem that giving good education on ‘how to’ is enough to bring about the desired change for the better. It would seem that financial aspects feature and influence much also. Just one aspect, the decision on how much time is allocated to shearing each sheep, will have a connection to the amount of money that is able or wanted to be allocated to that procedure.
Below is a paragraph from the discussion of shearing in the book Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries about Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion (2020) by Ingrid Newkirk (founder of PETA) and Gene Stone makes hard reading:
‘Sheep are starved of food and water before shearing to make them easier to control and so that they do not lose bladder control when they panic. And, being prey animals for whom being held fast means death, they do panic. When this happens, videos shot inside shearing sheds on every continent but Antarctica show that shearers stomp or stand on the heads and necks of sheep, kick them, and slam them against wooden floors. Investigators have seen workers punch and bludgeon sheep in the face with fists, with sharp metal clippers, and even with hammers. In one videotaped case, a shearer twisted a sheep’s neck until she died, and even picked up a live sheep by the skin on her back and used her body to her own urine off the floor’.
Clearly, initiatives, measures, advice, training, education, and so on, are not yet adequate, widespread and embedded enough. Much more improvement and enlightenment are demanded in regards the whole process of sheep shearing.
There is huge ‘distance to travel’, still, before shearing - necessary to happen for the welfare of the sheep - can become an experience for sheep of absolutely minimum risk and stress.
It seems that nubs of the matter, concerning the calibre of sheep shearing, are: the level of care and attention that humans give to the shearing process; the amount of money - income and expenditure - that shearing represents to sheep owners.
Facilities and provisions for sheep shearing need to be high standard. Shearers of sheep need to be well-trained and competent in the process they are operating, and they need to show care and compassion towards the sheep they shear.
20th August 2021