Sheep produced for their wool are confined to cramped areas most of their lives, and they are sheared whenever the people need to shear them, whether it is cold at that time of year or not.

Furthermore, many sheep farmers, most notably Australian ones (where we get most of our wool), practice mulesing. Mulesing is the practice of hacking off large chunks of flesh from the rump of the sheep, without any anesthetic. This is done in hopes that the flesh will scar over smoothly and prevent parasites from trying to take up shop in the many folds of flesh on the sheep’s rump. Often, the wounds from mulesing get infected, because of course the sheep are not given any kind of decent treatment or care after this is done. It should also be noted that mulesing only came about after farmers consistently bred sheep to have more skin area, in order to produce more wool

After the sheep have produced wool for many years, they are shipped off to be killed, most often to Middle Eastern countries, where they experience brutal deaths. After all the warmth they have provided people, there is no happy retirement.