Fat Rumped Sheep

Typically when people think if sheep they think of a classic looking animal with white wool, and a docked tail.  When shown an image of a Fat Rumped sheep they think the poor thing has some sort of growth, but fat rumped, and fat tailed sheep represent about 20 - 25 % of the entire sheep population on the planet, most being the the Middle East, Africa, India, and parts of China. 

Fat rumped, and fat tailed sheep, are not new, they have been around before Biblical times, and are very adapted to their environments and a nomidic lifestyle in harsh conditions.  They are among the more unusual types of sheep.

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Fat rumped, and fat tailed sheep do not have their tails docked, over time these areas get larger.  These sheep store fat in their tails, or rumps, much like a camel stores fat in its hump.  Few people know this, but donkeys store fat in the same way, along the sides of the crest of their neck.  The tails, or rumps, have been used in cooking, but is less popular now than years ago when other cooking oils and fats were harder to get.

Some of the more common breeds include the Blackhead Persian, which is a hair sheep, the Awassi, and the Karakul sheep, whom we have talked about before due to the cruel industry of harvesting fetal lambs.

Fat rumped, and fat tailed sheep are very exotic, and a bit funny looking to people who have not seen them before, but they are ideally suited to life in harsher desert areas. 

Read more, and see more pictures, of fat rumped, and fat tailed sheep, by clicking here.

Sheep Mutilation in Australia, Mulesing

Mulesing is the act of slicing off a dinner plate amount of skin from the rump of a Merino sheep lamb.  Mulesing is often done when the lambs are weaned, and only to those lambs that are going to be kept for breeding, not those going for slaughter.  The lambs are lifted into a holding cradle which holds their legs and puts their rump into the air.  The skin is pinched together and without any pain killers, or antiseptics (both of which cost money) the skin is sliced off.  The lambs are released to heal, which may take four months - some will suffer from stress, infection, or tetanus.

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This practice is almost exclusive to Australia (with a bit done in New Zealand) and in the Merino sheep breed, as they tend to have more skin around their rump which, when woolly, can become covered in feces, and attracts flies.  The flies can be a real problem, laying eggs on the rump of the sheep, which hatch out to maggots that will eat the sheep alive, killing it, this being known as Fly Strike.

Mulesing is the cruel, and cheap, way Australian farmers deal with the problem of fly strike.  Crutching is a better alternative but needs to be done yearly.  Crutching involves shaving the wool only from that area, prior to shearing the animal later in the year.  Tail Docking also helps reduce problems with fly strike.

To Read More, and find out where to complain, please visit:

What are Mulesing and Crutching

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