Wool that never stops
Why Do Sheep Need a Haircut?
A wild sheep sheds its coat every year. A farm sheep has had that shedding bred out of it.
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Step 1 of 5
Wild sheep drop their coat every spring.
The winter fleece loosens and comes away in clumps once the weather warms. Nobody helps; the animal simply sheds it, the way a cat sheds in summer.
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Step 2 of 5
People wanted the wool, so they kept the sheep that hung on to it.
A fleece that falls off in the field is lost. Farmers kept the animals whose wool stayed put, and bred from those, for thousands of years.
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Step 3 of 5
Now the growing has no stop signal at all.
The shedding was bred away, and so was the pause. A farm sheep's wool keeps lengthening for as long as the sheep lives.
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Step 4 of 5
An unshorn sheep is in real trouble.
The fleece is a blanket the animal cannot take off. It overheats in summer, it cannot see out, and the weight alone can stop it standing back up.
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Step 5 of 5
So shearing is not cruelty, it is the missing spring.
Once a year a person does the job the animal used to do for itself, and the sheep walks away cooler and lighter.
Wool is warm for the same reason fur is: it traps still air. The fibres are crimped, so they hold each other apart and leave gaps.
The short version
Farm sheep need shearing because people spent thousands of years breeding out the yearly shed that wild sheep still do for themselves.
Try it yourself
Squash a woollen jumper flat and let go. It springs back because the crimped fibres hold gaps of air — and it is the air, not the wool, that keeps you warm.