Rogue Sheep Finally gets a Haircut

Sightings of a lone sheep in Australia were reported to the RSPCA, and a crew from the agency captured it Tuesday. Chris, as they named him, is a Merino sheep that had gone unshorn for at least five years. A team of five volunteer sheep shearers, including national champion Ian Elkins, worked for 40 minutes to remove 89 pounds of wool! See if you can find Chris among all that the wool in this picture.

Now Chris is 89 pounds lighter and has a world record for the most wool removed from a sheep in one shearing. Buzzfeed has the complete story with plenty of pictures.

(Images credit: RSPCA)

Forced me to look up the market price for raw wool (just under $4.00 per lbs). As well, I weighed an Irish Fisherman's Sweater (1.5 lbs). Just not sure what to do with all this information.

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Makes you wonder how wild sheep lived way back before they were domesticated. Is this a bred characteristic, or did they used to just expand until they were eventually caught and killed by predators? It would be a terrible camouflage, but predators may have a hard time getting past all the wool.
Also, hopefully, none of the pictures are from the back end.

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There is a part of England with wild sheep. While hiking through there, the locals gave me the lore. There are few if any natural predators. The wool is an effective camouflage in the snow. As well, they can eat it to stay alive when snowed over.

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In Scotland the sheep roam all over the hills/tors/mountains/wilderness. The shepherds spray a colored dye on the side of their sheep so they can distinguish them from all the others mixed in with them. Red, blue, orange... all the colors of the rainbow.