Is Merino Wool Vegan?

The short answer is no, merino wool, and any other type of wool is not vegan.

Background: Merino is just a breed of sheep, known for their fine and soft wool.

In theory, sheep’s don’t need to get hurt during the sheering process. But like many things, reality differs a lot from theory.

How Sheep Suffer During Sheering

Here are the main forms of animal cruelty during the shearing process:

1. Mulesing – When sheep get infections, one particularly barbaric form of “treatment”  is to carve a chunk of skin and flesh from the affected area (without painkillers). It’s still practiced in Australia, where a lot of merino wool comes from. It was supposed to be phased out by 2010, but that promise by the wool industry was delayed. It’s still practiced in 2018.
2. Abuse – I can’t bear to watch another video of sheep being pushed, punched, kicked, and stepped on. Shearers get paid for their production, which encourages rough animal interaction. Sheep get bloody, and suffer wide arrays of injuries on a regular basis.
3. What happens after the wool? – Like cow’s dairy production, a sheep’s wool production declines after a period of time, long before dying of natural causes. These sheep are sent to be slaughtered for meat.

While it’s heartbreaking to watch, I think everyone should see firsthand what goes into the wool they buy and wear.

But Isn’t Sheering Necessary?

This point is brought up often.

It’s true that many modern breeds of sheep need to be sheered or else their wool grows so long that it causes health issues.

There are basically 2 things to consider here:

1. These types of sheep only have health problems from excess wool because we bred them to overproduce wool. The kindest thing to do here would be to let these certain breeds naturally become extinct. But when you buy wool and support the wool industry, they will continue to breed these sheep.
2. Sheep can be sheered without having their wool sold. As soon as you bring profit into the equation, you can be sure that the greed of some people will exploit any resource like wool to make a profit. They hire the cheapest labor who don’t treat the sheep well, and keep sheep in poor (i.e. cheap) conditions.

So while there’s a small window of opportunity of “ethical” wool, I really don’t buy it unless you can go visit the farm as well. Then there are other questions like, what happens to the sheep if they get sick or start to produce less wool?

Merino Wool Alternatives

So what do you do now for warm winter clothing now that merino wool isn’t an option?

The most common alternatives are clothes made from:

• Polyester
• Bamboo
• Acrylic
• Cotton
• Nylon

All of these materials are vegan and fairly commonly used in warm clothing.

I’m in the process of putting together vegan guides to specific types of clothing alternatives that usually use wool.

1. Vegan alternatives to wool socks
2. Vegan alternatives to wool hats
3. Vegan alternatives to wool blankets