"Genetically engineered" in the same way he was genetically engineered to be an idiot.... by selective breeding, which is not artificial genetic modification as he intends to imply.
Having just come home from visiting Iceland, and after visiting farms there, and also farms in New Zealand, I can say unequivocally that most farms in those countries are what you think of, peaceful sheep in large bucolic fields enjoying their lives and not being injured during once a year sheering of wool that's otherwise a problem for them to shed naturally. I won't speak to Australia, since I've never been there...maybe all sheerers are dicks there.
No farmer would accept the behavior shown, you can't sell wool from a dead or bloody sheep. He needs to get his theory straight...are they only interested in maximum profit, or do they abuse their animals without concern, because it can't be both.
If he really wants to do good for the animals of the world, he should refrain from breeding himself. His kids will probably wear nothing but fur when they leave home just to spite him.

The National Farmers Federation says that “mulesing remains the most effective practical way to eliminate the risk of ‘flystrike’ in sheep” and that “without mulesing up to 3,000,000 sheep a year could die a slow and agonising death from flystrike”.

A fiber farmer is heavily invested in the health and well being of their animals for the simple reason that an animal that isn’t happy and healthy can’t produce a sell-able product. An animal going through a period of stress of any kind produces a fiber that breaks.

Wool fiber has properties that make it unequaled by many other natural fibers/ Lanolin is also a critical oil that cannot be replaced with other oils. Lanolin and its many derivatives are used extensively in both the personal care (e.g., high value cosmetics, facial cosmetics, lip products) and health care sectors. Lanolin is also found in “lubricants, rust-preventative coatings, shoe polish, and other commercial products”

In some cases, the products derived from sheep make up a very large portion of a country's GDP. Banning sheep farming could cripple a country like New Zealand economically.

That said, obviously there are some horrible scenes in the video. Obviously there needs to be more oversight to control abuse to the animals. However, I would like to point out that the video did cherry pick a couple of companies that had egregious policies. Also, if the mulesing that was shown was part of the PETA video, it was staged with a fake lamb. PETA even admitted they staged that video for 'educational' purposes. I don't know if it was the same clip, but just putting that out there.

That's the scariest bit. On the surface it looks like a peaceful farm, because when you're going past it, all you see is lovely green grass and sheep grazing, it looks lovely and peaceful.

You don't get to see the castration, horn removal, tail docking and mulesing without any sort of anesthetic - this happens to every single lamb.

You also don't get to see the workers having a bad day and abusing (after the product is removed from them). This might not happen to every sheep, but with around 30 sheep getting sheared an hour by each person, you can bet at that speed it's not a pleasant experience even without malicious intent.

Outsiders just see a lovely country side, with sheep grazing before and after the abuse.

That's a good reason to boycott wool. If it's all profit driven they will find other ways to make their product.

For example we've got yeast now which grows dairy milk identical to cows milk, thanks to an increasing market of people who refuse to buy milk from dairy farms.

I'm certain if enough people put pressure on the wool industry then someone innovative will take advantage and make some kind of device that grows wool without the sheep.

So we can have our cakes and eat them too in the long run, just by slightly altering our purchasing habits in the short term.

If, as you wrongly assume, I had only driven by them, you could get away with that statement. Unfortunately for you, I actually went TO the farms, stayed at them (slept there) and watched the workers at their jobs. (EDIT: I also have an angora goat rancher in my family...close enough to the same thing for this discussion.)
I stand by my previous statement 100 percent, with first hand knowledge about the topic.
This video is bullshit. You dragged it out of me. 99.95% of farms would never allow anything they showed to happen, and would report the abuse to the authorities after booting the offender off the farm.

Edit: and yes, fast sheerers can do even more than 30 an hour, but they know exactly how to handle the sheep with tiny pokes that put them into a seated, leaning position that makes it simple to control them painlessly and without any trauma in the least using their legs while sheering. In the two times I watched, over 150 sheep altogether, I saw 2 get slight cuts that were taken care of properly and with care. As was mentioned above, stressed animals make subpar wool, so it's in the rancher/farmers interest to keep them happy, so they do.

Males had their horns on the farms I went to and the one's I drove past....so you're wrong about that too.

Of course, an open farm like the one you stayed at has to be as least cruel as possible, otherwise nobody would stay there.

Iceland and New Zealand specifically have very good animal rights laws too, unfortunately they are the exception, not the standard.

So, it's your contention that the farms I have specific knowledge of, including my family's farm in Texas (and their friends and neighbors I've visited), and the countries best known for sheep are the only exceptions, and every place I can't speak to personally is sheep hell?
I'm sorry if I find that incredulous.

And...what about your statement "that happens to every single lamb"?....except for all the one's I've seen? Hmmmm....I guess they were all in committed relationships.

EDIT: so, if you admit that New Zealand and Icelandic wool are cruelty free, why are you still trying to tell people to give up wool? how about telling them to only buy quality wool from places like New Zealand and Iceland instead of lying about what happens to every sheep, but never adding "except in all the places that doesn't happen"?

I never said they were cruelty free, they just have better standards.

Also you always do this when it comes to farm discussions, you bring up anecdotal evidence. Unless you've been to every farm in the world, your personal experience is irrelevant.

You certainly intentionally implied it.

And you always do this, discount people's actual experience and education in favor of bullshit hyperbole and made up 'facts' (normally called lies), and actually try to lambast people for thinking their real experience might represent reality, because you KNOW better (but you have zero experience to draw from, only propaganda and conjecture).

And so, unless YOU'VE been to every farm in the world (and I doubt you've been to one at all), by your standards, your opinion is irrelevant. Sorry, but in my world, actual lifelong experience trumps uninformed hyperbolic propaganda every single time.

You are projecting your own emotions onto my comments if you think this is lambasting.

But here is some since you enjoy it so much:

Not only do you know what every farm in the world is like, you also know how much or little personal experience I have with this topic as well. Why are you wasting your time on this website when you could be using your powers to do good in the world?

Because I'm broken, so I have free time but no real physical capabilities, and because I don't think most of the world deserves or wants my help.

I did my good here at home, where being a good citizen starts. I grow much of my own food at home using poo, not artificial fertilizers, I make my own electricity (mostly, by solar), and most important of all, I got fixed without having children. That's far more good for the world than 99.99% of people can be expected to do in their lifetimes, so I'm waiting for the rest of you to catch up. ;-)
Besides, I'm of the opinion that it's all over at this point, that global warming is far beyond solvable at this point, not that humans are trying. I firmly believe that land, water, and food shortages are in the near future for most people, so all these little arguments are moot. The animals have less of a chance than man, and man has no chance. The methane is melting, in my eyes that's game over, out of time. It's time to party like it's 1999.

That's odd, I recall specifically mentioning that I wouldn't speak about places I didn't know about, like Australia. I think a reading comprehension class may be in order.
As for your personal experience, I can only go by what you've said, which indicates you have none because it goes against 46 years of my own experience, which I KNOW is extensive in this field (farming/ranching). Not many people travel to other continents to go visit other farms to see how they do things....I actually have done so repeatedly, up to and including last week in Iceland.

EDIT: And I said you TRY to lambast, not that you are successful in making me feel lambasted.

Lambasting Pt.2

Human milk, GROSS! Cockroach milk, GROSS! Milk from a cow that's been facing in one direction for 4 years on a concrete floor, pumped with antibiotics, forcibly impregnated on what the industry calls a "rape rack" over and over, and fed bonemeal from it's dead neighboring milking cows, YUM!

I'm trying to raise awareness. This empowers people to make better decisions. And you try your best to beat me on a technicality or to discredit the host so that you can keep pretending none of this is real.



It just hit me. I just realised that your family and friends have farms. Now I understand the hostility. You're taking this as a personal attack on your family and friends, and on as an attack on their livelihoods.

Well my advice is to sell now and invest in new technology, the change is coming regardless of how hard animal farmers fight back.

You did say that, but then you also said: "99.95% of farms would never allow anything they showed to happen"

Which I'm assuming that you're basing that on "my friends farm is nice, so 99.95% farms must be fine"

Bovine milk from a happy cow that eats grass and lives in a field with good, appropriate medical care, like the one's we raised and the one's I visited last week, yum.

Your hyperbole is showing. You lower awareness with that kind of lie...that all animals are mistreated so all animal products are products of torture. It's bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you just keep on spouting it. I'll keep on contradicting it. That's the deal.

Sorry, you missed the mark. I take lies, any lies, as an attack on humanity. You are lying. It's not because it's a personal or family attack, but that is the reason I have the personal knowledge to discredit you thoroughly. I actually hate the relative with the goat farm and would love to see her lose her shirt, but I admit she is an excellent animal caregiver...to the point where she often sleeps in the goat pen (outside in Texas Hill country) with them for their comfort and safety.
I have nothing to sell, I'm not invested in it at all beyond my home garden/subsistence farm. I buy my meats, but I buy good quality, properly cared for meat, not Burgerking, because I care about quality and animals. There are certainly abuses in farming, but they are the exception rather than the rule, contrary to your position. I have the extensive personal experience to say that comfortably.

EDIT: Buying LCD products is what causes the abuses you complain about. Quality products are not made as cheaply as possible, so do not have the issues you claim all animal products are tainted with. You know this.

Well I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, and happy to hear about your efforts.

But even if it is the end of the world, unethical is still unethical, up until the point where the concept of ethics is gone with the rest of the world. So please stop trying to discredit all of this for the younger people that need this information.

Makes sense though, PETA would be the last organisation to do it on an actual animal just for demonstration.

Thanks, but don't be sorry, my life is good even with my issues.

Yes, unethical is still unethical, and lying is always unethical. Stop lying (by omission or exaggeration) and tell the whole truth about these things, even when some of that truth works against your goals/narrative, and I'll stop contradicting you. Your insistence on pretending the worst practices are the norm, and that ethical animal treatment is an outlier is my issue, because I know it's not true from actual experience, not propaganda. Read my comments carefully and you'll see my issue is with your exaggeration and hyperbolic blanket statements, not your goal to lessen animal suffering.

I think using exaggeration and lies to make a point is an admission that you have no honest point to make, or that you don't believe that the facts support you.
Since there is an issue with bad practices, I see the exaggeration and hyperbole as working AGAINST proper animal treatment....you offer people the opportunity to dismiss you completely when you do that. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and the clear truth, and I won't discredit anything, I won't be able to. The younger people need correct information, not exaggerated propaganda and lies. Only then can they make a real informed choice.
It's my same issue with the "truth" campaign against smoking. They lie and exaggerate, obfuscate and fabricate, and convince themselves the ends justify the means. I can almost never agree with that sentiment. Lies are lies and should be exposed at every chance, IMO.

No, I'm basing it on the theory that farmers want to make money, and you don't do that by abusing the product.
Also, the theory that MOST farmers are in it because they love the animals, because there are WAY easier and more certain ways to make money than abusive ranching.
Of course, there are those freaks that want to abuse the animals, don't care about them, or are too dumb to know better, which is why I won't say 100%.

I would like to also point out that human circumcisions are done without anesthetic. Some level of pain infliction to prevent more pain and injury is acceptable....but by that be clear I'm not excusing the behavior in the video.

Moving this video to transmorpher's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.