Sheep farming

Farmers build fences, housing, shearing sheds, and other facilities on their property, such as for water, feed, transport, and pest control.

When the farmer sees that a ewe (female adult) is showing signs of heat or estrus, they can organise for mating with males.

The top producers of sheep meat (average from 1993 to 2013) were as follows: mainland China (1.6 million); Australia (618,000), New Zealand (519,000), the United Kingdom (335,000), and Turkey (288,857).

Ewes can be made to give birth in fall, winter, or spring months, either by artificial insemination or by facilitating natural mating.

Tail docking is commonly done for welfare, having been shown to reduce risk of flystrike when compared to the alternative of letting sheep collect waste around their buttocks.

Castration is performed on ram lambs not intended for breeding, although some shepherds choose to omit this for ethical, economic or practical reasons.

[7] A common castration technique is "elastration", which involves a thick rubber band being placed around the base of the infant's scrotum, obstructing the blood supply and causing atrophy.

Based on the preference of the shepherd, docking and castration are commonly done after 24 hours (to avoid interference with maternal bonding and consumption of colostrum) and are often done not later than one week after birth to minimize pain, stress, recovery time, and complications.

[16] Objections to all these procedures have been raised by animal rights groups, but farmers defend them by saying they reduce costs, and inflict only temporary pain.

[17][7] Although sheep primarily consume pasture roughage, they are sometimes given supplemental feed, such as corn and hay provided by the shepherds from their own fields.

When sheep can no longer produce enough wool to be considered profitable, they are sent to slaughter and sold as mutton, and lambs raised for meat are killed between 4 and 12 months of age.

George Monbiot's 2013 book Feral[22] attacks sheep farming in the United Kingdom as "a slow-burning ecological disaster, which has done more damage to the living systems of this country than either climate change or industrial pollution.