Edgar's Mission Inc/Handout via REUTERS
- An animal sanctuary in Australia rescued a sheep that was badly in need of a haircut earlier this month.
- Baarack, so named by his rescuers, was found in a forest carrying a wool coat that weighed 78 pounds.
- Domesticated sheep need to be sheared annually as a result of selective breeding done by humans.
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Baarack the sheep was in desperate need of a haircut.
The domestic sheep was discovered in a forest in Australia earlier this month “on the brink of certain death,” according to a Facebook post from the sanctuary that found him.
Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary, located in Victoria, said he was weighed down by 78 pounds of overgrown wool.
The person who found him was “struggling to comprehend that beneath that convoluted moving mass of matted fleece, adorned with countless sticks, twigs and insects… was not Australia’s answer to the yeti – but a sheep,” the sanctuary wrote.
Volunteers sheared Baarack of his heavy coat, sharing before and after photos of the transformation.
The sanctuary told Reuters it appeared Baarack was once an owned sheep, and had been ear-tagged, "however these appear to have been torn out by the thick matted fleece around his face."
Most breeds of domesticated sheep need to be sheared annually, according to the sanctuary, as a result of selective breeding done by humans. The wild animal from which sheep are descended had coats that would naturally shed and grow with the seasons.
"Whilst his hooves were in great condition from running over the rocks in the forest, he was in a bit of a bad way," Kyle Behrend from the sanctuary told Reuters. "He was underweight, and due to all of the wool around his face he could barely see."
Baarack is doing much better since his haircut, and is settling in nicely at the sanctuary alongside the other sheep. The sanctuary also made a video of his transformation, which went viral on TikTok.
"Baarack can now see the world more clearly," the sanctuary wrote.