Animal welfare explained: a global standard for a local fiber
When you buy a skein, a question often comes up, sometimes voiced aloud by your customers, sometimes simply present in the background: how was the animal that produced this wool treated? This is a legitimate question, and the global wool industry has been answering it for decades with a structured framework, rather than vague promises.
At the base of this framework are the Five Freedoms, which we have already discussed: freedom from hunger, distress, discomfort, pain, and the freedom to express natural behaviors. But in recent years, this framework has been enriched by a complement called the Five Domains, which adds an important dimension: it is no longer just about avoiding suffering, but also about actively promoting positive experiences for the animal. Four of these domains are physical—nutrition, the physical environment, health, and behavioral interactions—and the fifth directly concerns the animal's mental state.
What makes this structure particularly interesting is that it then allows each country to adapt these universal principles to its own legal, climatic, and cultural context. Australia, for example, delegates responsibility for animal welfare to its states and territories. Canada operates in a similar way: primary responsibility lies with each province, with networks such as the National Sheep Network bringing together producers from the most active sheep-farming provinces—including Quebec, through the Éleveurs ovins du Québec.
This diversity of legal frameworks is not a weakness: it simply reflects the fact that raising sheep in the arid climate of Australia is nothing like doing so in the harsh winters of Lanaudière, and that best practices must necessarily adapt to these very different realities.
For Makeloo Studio, understanding this global framework allows us to accurately position our own practice: our partner farms operate in a temperate climate, without the particular challenges faced by Australian sheep farming.
Source: International Wool Textile Organisation, Specifications for Wool Sheep Welfare (2026); World Organisation for Animal Health.