How does a sheep deal with its wool if it is not sheared by humans?

If humans don't shear their wool, how will sheep manage their own wool? I suddenly remembered the case of a rescued sheep with a giant wool coat, if not saved in time it would die and from here I learned more about whether sheep can molt their own wool or whether humans are required to shear their wool.

The story is that in December 2015 in Canberra, Australia, a sheep named Chris got lost and when he was discovered by a hiker, he had a giant coat of wool that covered his eyes. Chris was quickly sheared and people collected a wool weighing up to 40 kg. It took 45 minutes to remove the wool from Chris while normally the shearing process only takes about 30 seconds. So why did Chris the sheep not shed its wool but had to "endure" such a giant coat of wool?

Chris is a Merino sheep, which means a breed of sheep that produces wool and the wool from Merino sheep is famous for its softness. Merino is a breed of sheep with high economic value and is raised a lot in Europe and Australia.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, Spanish shepherds crossed native sheep with English breeds, resulting in the Merino, a breed that is not suited to living in the wild. Because they cannot shed their wool on a yearly basis, a vital survival trait for sheep in the wild, Merinos cannot survive without humans. They require human shearing, and each can produce between 4.5 and 20 kg of wool per year.

Being a Merino sheep, Chris had a problem: he had been lost in the wild for five years and his wool was constantly growing. This was what every sheep farmer wanted, but it was a disaster for the sheep themselves. The thick, untrimmed wool meant that a Merino like Chris could die from disease or even be unable to go to the toilet.

It is not uncommon for Merino sheep to get lost in the wild. In 2004, a sheep named Shrek was found living alone in a cave in New Zealand for 6 years. Shrek had a coat weighing 27 kg.

So those sheep we see with their funny woolly coats are actually Merino sheep - a woolly breed and a hybrid created by humans. The silly sheep in Shaun the Sheep are probably Merinos too.

So what about other sheep, do they molt themselves or do they need humans to shear them?

Sheep were domesticated by humans around 11,000 - 9,000 BC, starting with wild Mouflon sheep in Mesopotamia - a land in Western Asia that now includes Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and the area along the lower Turkey-Syria, Iran-Iraq border. Sheep were also one of the first animals to be domesticated by humans. The Persians raised sheep for meat, milk and leather and by around 6,000 BC, sheep were raised for wool. Humans began to harvest wool for survival purposes, as it kept people warm during the harsh winters. Plant fibers were not warm and waterproof, while animal skins were not soft and did not insulate well. Wool became part of Persian culture and a typical commercial product. From here, sheep's wool was exported to Africa and Europe, and now it has become a very important fiber for humans, it is natural, reusable, and biodegradable.

And before modern machines were used to shear wool like today, in ancient times with primitive sheep breeds, people got their wool by "plucking" it by hand or harvesting it in the fields when the wool naturally fell. Since then, people have bred many breeds of sheep to serve many purposes such as wool, meat, and milk.

Wool breeds are mostly suitable for farming because they have been bred to have wool that grows all year round - in other words, they cannot survive without human hands. Each breed of sheep has different wool characteristics and produces different types of wool. Besides Merino, there are many breeds that specialize in wool such as Romney sheep, Lincoln sheep with the longest and heaviest wool for spinning and weaving (pictured above), Teeswater sheep with long wool and large fiber diameter, Leicester sheep with long wool, Corriedale sheep cross between Merino and Lincoln sheep .

Only a few primitive sheep breeds have retained their natural moulting characteristics and are still being farmed. Typical examples are the semi-wild Scottish breeds such as the Boreray sheep, which is mainly used for meat and moults naturally, and the Soay sheep, which has a distinctive dark coat and moults itself (pictured above).

In addition, many sheep breeds are bred for meat and milk only, so their wool is not as developed as the Merino sheep. For example, the Katahdin short-wool sheep originated in Maine, USA, the Dorper sheep originated in South Africa, the Blackbelly sheep is a relative of the wild mountain sheep found in the Mediterranean basin, the Croix small sheep, the Persian Blackhead sheep common in Africa and many other African sheep breeds with short, soft wool to adapt to the environment such as the West African dwarf sheep, the Maasai red sheep, etc.

In short, sheep have lived closely with humans for a long time and for those sheep raised for wool, please do not get lost, without humans to cut their wool, they will not poop. Chris the sheep with a wool of up to 40 kg set a world record for "Heaviest wool cut from a sheep". Sadly, Chris died last October, he was nearly 10 years old. People remember Chris as a resilient sheep because he lived alone among kangaroos with wool weighing almost twice his body weight for 5 consecutive years.