Sheep Lost in the Wild For Six Years Sheared of 88 Pounds of Fleece

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/03/17/australia-sheep-sheared-88-pounds-of-fleece/3941647551201/

https://archive.ph/NSeu6

Sheep lost in the wild for six years sheared of 88 pounds of fleece

March 17 (UPI) -- A sheep found wandering on an Australian mountain was relieved of a great weight when his first shearing in at least six years removed 88 pounds of fleece.

Pam Ahern, owner of Victoria animal sanctuary Edgar's Mission, said she recently received a call about a sheep found by a hiker on nearby Mount Alexander.


The sheep, dubbed Alex in honor of where he was found, had apparently escaped from a farm when he was only a baby and hadn't been sheared in at least six years, and may have escaped before even receiving his first shearing.

"He had 40 kilos of wool on him when he came to us," Ahern told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "He had urine, sticks, twigs and bugs all over him -- it was heartbreaking.

Ahern said Alex's wool was so matted she had to call in an expert to perform a shearing.

"Holly came out at midnight and worked on him for about an hour," she said. "It was critical, if we didn't get it off him that night, I actually don't think he would have made it through the night."

Holly Kendall, who performed the shearing, said Alex's condition began to improve quickly.


"When we finished he still needed help to stand but you could see his eyes getting brighter by the minute," she said.

Edgar's Mission shared video of Alex's transformation on Facebook.

"Did you know that sheep, like Alex, require at least annual shearing for their welfare? This is a direct result of human selective breeding for wool that is harvested for commercial purposes and speaks to how we have altered their lives," the group's post said.

Ahern said Edgar will have a new permanent home at her sanctuary.

"He'll now stay with us, and he's already formed a strong bond with Chloe and Molly Brown, our two other sheep," she said.

 

[Cardef1121]

I wish I could lose weight that quickly. I was going to ask how sheep managed in the wild but realized humans must've bred them to have so much fleece.

 

[Butter]

Poor babies. Glad they're fine now.

Time for a lamb kebab.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

There'll never be another Shrek.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

There'll never be another Shrek.
View attachment 3081905

I want to hug him and hear him go BAAAA

 

[Tasty Tatty]

It's bad for them when they don't shear them, despite what animal rights activists and PETA say. Same with alpacas or vicuñas. An alpaca or vicuña after shearing has no value and hunters don't kill them.

 

[DumbDude42]

I wish I could lose weight that quickly. I was going to ask how sheep managed in the wild but realized humans must've bred them to have so much fleece.

yeah the modern sheep is the result of breeding mouflons for maximum fleece yield over a long time.
before that, they looked like this:

 

[The Southwest Strangla]

poor fella. glad he got sheared.

 

[Kheapathic]

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time I heard this story, different sheep though. I imagine this happens quite a bit in places with sheep farming.

 

[Sundae]

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time I heard this story, different sheep though. I imagine this happens quite a bit in places with sheep farming.

There was a similar story a couple of years ago:

 

[Kheapathic]

There was a similar story a couple of years ago:

The one I remember reading about, they named the sheep after some famous Australian who... I can't remember if the guy was pro at living in the rough or some criminal who was good at escaping. But they named the sheep after him, because the sheep was seen but usually managed to escape. Even with all the excess wool on him, the sheep was ready to put up a fight. But again, I imagine where livestock farming happens, escaped animals are a thing, so sheep getting out and getting overgrown is common.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

I want to hug him and hear him go BAAAA

Sheep actually make good pets if you put in the work to make friends with them. Of course the friendliest ones are the ones who were bottle-fed by humans when they were lambs, as they literally don't realize that they aren't people. In the wild, a female sheep will follow her mother around her whole life, and this behavior will transfer over to human "mothers" (the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was a case in point). As highly social animals, sheep need to be kept with their flock, whether this means other sheep, or (for bottle lambs) people. Even the company of goats will stave off potentially fatal loneliness in a pinch, but otherwise sheep stressed by solitude may stop eating and die. The presence of barking dogs can also harass sheep to death, even if the dogs can't get at the sheep the chronic stress may still kill them.

Sheep aren't the smartest animals, but nevertheless they can be taught to do simple tricks, such as coming when their name is called. They are notoriously insensitive to punishment; sheep kept in electric fencing will test the fence multiple times a day, getting shocked each time, but they are responsive to food treats. Be careful not to overdo the sweet treats (which includes even things like dried corn and other grains), as sheep will eat them until they bloat up and die! A more subtle peril of excess sweets is that like humans, excessive refined carbohydrates will cause adverse changes in the gut microbiome of sheep, which in theory could cause a condition akin to autism in humans to arise in their lambs; there's certain anecdotal evidence for it but it really needs formal study. Sheep must not be given mineral salt mixes made for other species such as goats, as sheep have evolved to need little copper and goat salt will kill them with copper toxicity.

There is anecdotal evidence that sheep may be trained to use a litterbox or similar receptacle by means of rewarding them when they use it (punishment-based training like you would use for a dog or cat will not work). Clicker training is known to work well on sheep.

Excess petting and cuddling may be subtly harmful to sheep by depriving them of vitamin D. Because the skin of the sheep is not really exposed to sunlight due to their wool, sheep produce vitamin D from substances secreted in their wool grease, which are converted to vitamin D when they are struck by UV light. The sheep then absorb the vitamin D when they groom themselves or each other. In fact, a significant fraction of vitamin D supplements on the market actually originate from processing of the wool grease of shorn sheep! So you should be able to avoid this problem by buying liquid vitamin D and letting the sheep lick it off your hands.

Sheep, while not normally thought of as being playful, nevertheless may play if their needs are met and they feel safe. Sheep are most playful from one month to four months of age. Sheep may butt an inflatable ball with their heads, and when they are lambs they like to run, jump, and chase each other around.

 

[Male Idiot]

88 pounds? May he live for 14 more years!

 

[Butcher Pete]

Nice fro, nigga

 

[Weeb Slinger]

"He had urine, sticks, twigs and bugs all over him

It's the feral sheep or Boogie? challenge.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

Kiwis should let some of the unproductive cows wander around in the wilderness unmolested for half a decade and welcome the bountiful harvest.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

88 pounds? May he live for 14 more years!

He might if he really did escape before his first shearing, although he probably won't. Sheep normally live 10-15 years, but if I recall correctly, the oldest known sheep lived to 21 years of age. The physiological stress of all those years of excess wool probably took a real toll on him though.

 

[Burd Turglar]

I just cooked up some lamb liver the other night, shit was delicious.

 

[Kheapathic]

Because the skin of the sheep is not really exposed to sunlight due to their wool, sheep produce vitamin D from substances secreted in their wool grease, which are converted to vitamin D when they are struck by UV light. The sheep then absorb the vitamin D when they groom themselves or each other.

I want to say you're making that up, but a quick internet search and... ... ... nature is fucking weird.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

yeah the modern sheep is the result of breeding mouflons for maximum fleece yield over a long time.
before that, they looked like this:
View attachment 3081973
View attachment 3081974

Right, the wild mouflon is to the domestic sheep as wolves are to dogs. And just like some people have deliberately backcrossed dogs to wolves, so some people have backcrossed domestic sheep to mouflons. The miniature breed that is the modern Soay sheep is one such cross; basically, they are smaller, slightly friendlier, somewhat fluffier mouflons. There's some crazy woman in Kentucky who actually keeps these half-wild sheep as pets (along with a few Shetland miniature sheep). Just look at this lovely mouflon coloration on this Soay sheep here! She's beautiful:



Here name is Mira, short for Baby Miracle. In an earlier post in this thread, I mentioned that I suspected that sheep could have a form of autism. Things like this are part of the reason why. She is more interested in interacting with inanimate objects (sticks and rocks) than other sheep, she's quite bad-tempered, and if offended she'll hold a grudge for a week. Also she has no maternal instincts, and her only lamb, Angel, had to be bottle-fed (like Mira herself; the crazy sheep lady took the hint and didn't try breeding the line any further). Angel is even more bad-tempered and is crazy-aggressive. The two bottle lambs would fight over the attention of their human mother.

This post mentions that she had to bribe these very wild and troublesome sheep with immense amounts of crunchies (Corn Chex cereal), which like every cereal you'll find these days contains substantial amounts of added sugar. Which over time can cause gut dysbiosis with soaring populations of Candida genus gut yeast, at least in humans, and autistic humans in particular have very high levels of Candida. And in humans, this condition causes poor absorption of various nutrients including zinc. Which autistic people are low in, because of their chronic Candida gut infection. And one of the symptoms of zinc depletion is loss of the sense of smell and taste. Guess what sense a mother sheep uses to bond to her newborn lamb? Yes, it's smell. When the lamb is born, it is covered in amniotic fluid, which the mother's high oxytocin levels from the birth cause her to be attracted to (normally the smell repulses sheep) and lick off. When she does this, she gets a really really good whiff of the new lamb's scent, right when her sky-high levels of oxytocin have primed her to bond emotionally. This gets her to let the lamb nurse, and once she lets the baby nurse then it will further strengthen the bond and the lamb, in turn, will start to recognize the ewe as its mother.

The social symptoms of autism in humans are caused by a Clostridia-genus gut infection that is able to opportunistically exploit the weakening of the gut's defenses caused by the Candida. The Clostridia then secretes excess amounts of propionic acid which poisons the cerebellum, causing problems with motor skills, emotional regulation, and socializing. Well, this is part of the issue anyway; I have found out that irritable bowel syndrome also involves Clostridia infection, but without Candida, full autism does not manifest, and here I explain about the neurological consequences of the copper/zinc imbalance caused by the Candida infection. I now believe that the issue is a malevolent synergistic effect where the excess copper and excess propionic acid from these two gut microbes both impair the cerebellum more than either alone. I don't know of any reason why this would affect a sheep any differently. If this sheep were a person, I'd recommend that she take zinc, high-dose taurine, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), vitamin B6, and niacin.