Wool is more of a byproduct of the lamb meat industry these days, so wool and meat are inextricably entangled. I'm a sheep farmer, last couple years we threw the wool away due to lack of demand. Nobody is raising sheep just for wool.

However this is a problem with our distorted markets and not with the sheep industry, this valuable fiber is being dumped or burned while we pump out synthetic crap. It costs us more to remove it from the sheep to keep them from overheating, than we can sell it for.

[–] Fungah@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I can't wear wool. It physically hurts and causes a rash. I want to like wool. I want to wear wool. I can appreciate that wool is good. But even cashmere I'd like sandpaper.

I think we all know what the solution is. We need to genetically engineer a sheep that is 15 times as big with wool 200 times softer the reproduces by laying eggs, and make it so that it produces mostly drone sheep that are able to care for it without human intervention, grooming it attentively and instinctually building large hives out of the coarse wool we currently call wool, so that all we have to do is harvest the total wool to have cuddly soft garments in cute colors.

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Is it a lanolin allergy, and if so have you tried alpaca? Its as soft as cashmere (in superfine grade and above), but shouldn't make people with wool allergies itchy. It doesn't have the hive mind qualities you seem to be looking for, but it might help with the itchiness.

[–] zzx@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

I agree

[–] Leviathan@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is true and also not true. We've thrown away cow hides and sheep skins/wool for lack of demand, but I also know the wool industry and they're not exactly chomping at the bit to get their hands on the garbage wool slaughterhouses (or in our case small/medium farms) produce. There are producers who raised sheep just for high quality wool whose meat you wouldn't really want to eat..

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Damn throwing away cow hide sounds so sad... That stuff is awesome I can't believe there was no takers.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

Yes valid point, our wool is not ideal being farm flock wool, medium fibers. But for years we still sheared/skirted/bagged and tried to deliver at least a saleable product, it was disappointing to see it go to zero value. I would love to see it at least made into insulation batts or something.

Most of that high end Merino wool comes from places like NZ where they can graze year round, here the hay and chaff always mess the wool up a little and most have said running a true fiber flock is not economical. In Canada at least fiber has always just been an adjunct to a productive meat flock.

I ran some Columbias for a couple years but let them go quick. Gorgeous wool but terribly behaved critters and the lambing percentage and flavour were very poor compared to our Dorset cross main flock.