HOME





Crutching2
Crutching refers to the removal of wool from around the tail and between the rear legs of a sheep for hygiene purposes. It can also refer to removing wool from the heads of sheep (''wigging'' or ''eye-wooling''). It does not refer to the process of mulesinga controversial procedure that involves removing of strips of wool-bearing skin from around the breech (buttocks) of a sheep. Motivation Through centuries of selective breeding, most recently through artificial insemination, domestic sheep have denser and longer wool than their wild forebears, which may require human intervention to maintain. Sheep with heavy fleeces of wool often develop stains or wikt:dag#Noun, dags on their rear ends from faeces. In ewes, urine can also stain the wool. To avoid discomfort to the sheep and damage to the fleece, pastoral farming, graziers remove the wool (and any dags) from the sheep. Urine and watery faeces from eating spring grass can also lead to myiasis (fly-strike), which occurs when fly ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sheep Shearer
A sheep shearer is a worker who uses (hand-powered)-blade or machine shears to remove wool from domestic sheep during crutching or shearing. History During the early years of sheep breeding in Australia, shearing was carried out by shepherds, assigned servants, Ticket of Leave men, and free labourers using blade shears. As the sheep industry expanded, more shearers were required. Although the demand had increased, conditions had not improved and shearers had to contend with terrible working conditions, very long hours and low pay. In 1888, Australia became the first country in the world to have a complete shearing, at Dunlop Station, finished using machines. By 1915, most large Australian sheep station shearing sheds had machines that were powered by steam engines. Later, internal combustion engines powered machines until rural power supplies became available. Sheep shearing today In most countries like Australia with large sheep flocks, the shearer is one of a contractor's tea ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Domestic Sheep Reproduction
Domesticated sheep are herd animals that are bred for agricultural trade. A flock of sheep is mated by a single ram, which has either been chosen by a farmer or, in feral populations, has established dominance through physical contests with other rams. Sheep have a breeding season (tupping) in the autumn, though some can breed year-round. As a result of the influence of humans on sheep breeding, ewes often produce multiple lambs. This increase in lamb births, both in number and birth weight, may cause problems with delivery and lamb survival, requiring the intervention of shepherds. Sexual behaviour Ewes generally reach sexual maturity at six to eight months of age, and rams generally between four and six (though ram lambs have occasionally been known to impregnate their mothers at two months). Sheep are seasonally polyoestrus animals. Ewes enter into estrus cycles about every 17 days, which last for approximately 30 hours. They indicate sexual readiness through physical displa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sheep Shearing
Sheep shearing is the process by which the Wool, woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a ''Sheep shearer, shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be said to have been "shorn", "sheared" or "shore" [in Australia]). The annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed, a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes more than 3,000 sheep per day. A working group of shearers and accompanying wool workers is known as a ''shearing gang''. Sheep are shorn in all seasons including winter, depending on the climate, management requirements and the availability of a Wool classing, woolclasser and wikt:Special:Search/shearer, shearers. Ewes are normally shorn prior to lambing in the warmer months, but consideration is typically made as to the welfare of the lambs by not shearing during cold climate winters. However, in high country regions, pre lamb she ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Parasitism
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson characterised parasites' way of feeding as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. One major axis of classification concerns invasiveness: ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Urination
Urination is the release of urine from the bladder through the urethra in Placentalia, placental mammals, or through the cloaca in other vertebrates. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction, and known colloquially by various names including peeing, weeing, pissing, and euphemistically number one. The process of urination is under voluntary control in healthy humans and #Animals, other animals, but may occur as a reflex in infants, some elderly individuals, and those with neurological injury. It is normal for adult humans to urinate up to seven times during the day. In some animals, in addition to expelling waste material, urination #Other animals, can mark territory or express submissiveness. Physiologically, urination involves coordination between the central nervous system, central, autonomic nervous system, autonomic, and somatic nervous systems. Brain centres that regulate urination in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Docking (animal)
Docking is the intentional removal of part of an animal's tail or, sometimes, ears. The term cropping is more commonly used in reference to the cropping of ears, while ''docking'' more commonly—but not exclusively—refers to the tail; the term tailing is used, also. The term has its origins in the living flesh of the tail, commonly known as the dock, from which the animal's tail hairs grow. Pigs Tail-docking in pigs is typically carried out without anesthetic when the piglet is three to four days old, causing acute trauma and pain. Commercially raised domestic pigs kept in close quarters have their tails docked to prevent chewing or biting each other's tails. Pig producers in Brazil and Thailand have stopped tail docking for animal welfare reasons. Routine tail-docking without anesthesia has been illegal in the EU since 1994. The Council Directive 2008/120/EC of 18 December 2008 laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs prohibited all tail-docking of pigs ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Flystrike
Myiasis ( ), also known as flystrike or fly strike, is the parasitic infestation of the body of a live animal by fly larvae (maggots) that grow inside the host while feeding on its tissue. Although flies are most commonly attracted to open wounds and urine- or feces-soaked fur, some species (including the most common myiatic flies—the botfly, blowfly, and screwfly) can create an infestation even on unbroken skin. Non-myiatic flies (such as the common housefly) can be responsible for accidental myiasis. Because some animals (particularly non-native domestic animals) cannot react as effectively as humans to the causes and effects of myiasis, such infestations present a severe and continuing problem for livestock industries worldwide, causing severe economic losses where they are not mitigated by human action. Although typically a far greater issue for animals, myiasis is also a relatively frequent disease for humans in rural tropical regions where myiatic flies thrive, and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sheep Shearing
Sheep shearing is the process by which the Wool, woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a ''Sheep shearer, shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, a sheep may be said to have been "shorn", "sheared" or "shore" [in Australia]). The annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed, a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes more than 3,000 sheep per day. A working group of shearers and accompanying wool workers is known as a ''shearing gang''. Sheep are shorn in all seasons including winter, depending on the climate, management requirements and the availability of a Wool classing, woolclasser and wikt:Special:Search/shearer, shearers. Ewes are normally shorn prior to lambing in the warmer months, but consideration is typically made as to the welfare of the lambs by not shearing during cold climate winters. However, in high country regions, pre lamb she ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Shearing Shed
Shearing sheds (or wool sheds) are large sheds located on sheep stations to accommodate large scale sheep shearing activities. In countries where large numbers of sheep are kept for wool, sometimes many thousands in a flock, shearing sheds are vital to house the necessary shearing equipment, and to ensure that the shearers and /or crutchers have a ready supply of dry, empty sheep. The shed also provides space where the wool is classed and pressed into approved wool packs and stored to await transport to market. Location of the shed is important as the site needs to be well drained and in an area reasonably close to most of the flock. It is helpful and will save a lot of money if the shed is located near to the electricity supply. At least some yards will be needed to facilitate shedding and count-outs. Regional variants of shearing shed architecture throughout Australia and New Zealand have been identified through different uses of building materials and local styles of des ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Merino
The Merino is a list of sheep breeds, breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the breed were not allowed, and those who tried risked capital punishment. During the eighteenth century, flocks were sent to the courts of a number of European countries, including France (where they developed into the Rambouillet (sheep), Rambouillet), Hungary, the Netherlands, Prussia, Saxony and Sweden. The Merino subsequently spread to many parts of the world, including South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. They are presently common in South Africa. Numerous recognised breeds, strains and variants have developed from the original type; these include, among others, the American Merino and Delaine Merino in the Americas, the Australian Merino, Booroola Merino and Peppin Merino in Oceania, and the Gentile di Puglia, M ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]