Having never raised sheep, I was unaware of this proceedure. The practice seems quite unpleasant, but the blowfly infections look far more so. One of the links on the Wiki article from the wool industry perspective has extremely unsettling video.
I'm certain the shepherds would rather do without, but there seems to be no viable alternative, and there's a lot of people in Aus who are dependant on the industry.
Regarding anthropomorphizing; ya, everyone does it, but people these days are so isolated from farming as children that they have trouble dealing with the realities of food and animal product production. My brother had a pet steer named "Fred". He was delicious.
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Date: 2008-05-01 12:47 pm (UTC)I'm certain the shepherds would rather do without, but there seems to be no viable alternative, and there's a lot of people in Aus who are dependant on the industry.
Regarding anthropomorphizing; ya, everyone does it, but people these days are so isolated from farming as children that they have trouble dealing with the realities of food and animal product production. My brother had a pet steer named "Fred". He was delicious.