The Wool From British Lambs

Most British lambs are bred purely for meat: even their tiny little fleeces, soft cream afros, are discarded. It seemed a terrible waste. British wool is no longer deemed the ultimate in luxury. Although hard-wearing and warm, it is (wrongly) thought not soft enough for today’s market.

Eighty per cent of our wool is now imported from Australia and New Zealand, where it is cheap, and uniformly white: any sheep that is not pure white, which means the wool is easy to dye, is killed.

Most lambswool is shaved from the dead carcass of the lambs after slaughter.

Adult wool sheep, too, have a mournfully short shelf life: the finest fleece is deemed to be from a sheep under one-year-old; when a sheep reaches five or six, it is thought too old to produce very soft wool and is slaughtered.

Tagged with: Australia • British Lambs • Liz Jones • Liz Jones's Diary • New Zealand • slaughtered • wool

Filed under: Environmental Issues • Green

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