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Cashmere goats shed their fleece once each year. Depending on where you live this can happen anywhere from December to March. Generally in the areas with colder longer winters goats shed later and areas with warmer shorter winters the goat's shed earlier.
So learning when your goats are likely to shed is the first step in knowing when to remove the fleece if you are combing or shearing. With in this time frame each goat is a bit different in their shedding cycle. Some goats shed from the front to the back, some from the back to the front and still others (the goats I like to keep) shed their complete coat at one time.
The diameter of the cashmere fibers: average fiber diameter (AFD) or mean fiber diameter (MFD) which ever you choose to call it, and the Co-efficient of variation (CV) play a big part in how a cashmere goat sheds its fleece. It has been my finding that goats with a CV under 20% are the goats that shed their coat at one time. These also are generally the goats with the lower MFD.
The health of a fleece is something that must be considered be it shorn or combed. You must keep your goats lice free, in good health, and fairly clean to grow a fleece that is of value. A fleece contaminated with lice, excess dander, excessive vegetation, and with stress breaks, is of no value to a hand spinner. Some times if the lice, dander, or vegetation is limited it will not show up after machine processing, but if the contamination is bad the processor will not accept it.
A fleece with breaking points from ill health has no value because it breaks as you process it, a fleece that is less than 1 ¼ inches long maybe of no value. You have wasted money feeding through the winter if you allow these things to ruin your fleece. It happens to the best of us if we are not diligent in our herd management. Harvesting a fleece for the best resulting product requires you to understand how the fleece grows on your goat.
Most, but not all cashmere goats grow coarser fiber on their necks. The fiber on the underside of the belly, and lower front and hind legs tends to be shorter and coarser. The premium fleece is from the shoulders down the side of the goat to its rump. The top line can hold heavy vegetation; this must be considered before adding it to your harvest.
The goal is to harvest as much of your goats fiber without down grading the whole fleece. Fleece with variable lengths is not desirable because of the results while spinning. Yarns spun with variable lengths of fiber tend to pill more and not retain their integrity.
Combing or Plucking
Timing can be everything when combing your goats. Try to comb too early and you may break the fibers, comb to late and you may have a matted mess. I have found that I love to comb my goats over shearing them. I just find it more pleasing to me…..so that is what I breed for; goats that comb well.
I comb about 20 goats each year. I prefer goats that have guard hair about one inch longer than the cashmere. It helps hold the cashmere on the goat as it sheds. This affords me a little leeway in the combing window.
I have found that combing goats with longer guard hair is not a big problem, but that I may need to shear off some of the guard hair just to keep it from getting out of control.
A stanchion is a must; when we first started with cashmere goats the head bale was used to hold a goat. This was a strange contraption of metal that wrapped around their face with a chain that went behind their horns and hooked on the other side. Personally I hated those things.
No goat was ever or will ever willingly walk up to one of these head bales and put their head into it. You have to handle each and every goat and force its head into it. The whole reasoning behind them was so you could shear the neck. Not worth it to me!
As I learned more and reality seeped in I realized three things.
1. I was going to become the sole person handling our goats.
2. I had no desire to man handle goats every time I needed to work with them.
3. I wasn’t going to bother shearing the neck on most of my goats for three reasons.
• Leaving the neck fleece on kept the goat warm, so didn’t need heat lamps.
• I didn’t want the coarse necks in with the premium fleece.
• There is normally heavy vegetation contamination on the neck.
• Thus it saved me money and time to not shear the necks.
Using a stanchion has allowed me to work my goats without physically handling them. A little training with grain and 95% of my herd willingly jump up and into the stanchion, all I have to do is pull the lever over and secure it. The goats are pleased because it allows them to eat a little grain while I do what ever needs doing. The goats don’t jump around quite as much, I can check teeth, check the eye for worm load, drench, and I can still comb or shear the neck on the goats I want too. I drag fewer and fewer goats each year. Yippee!!
Others still use the head bale and love it. It’s all about what works best for you. But I can tell you my body really likes the stanchion.
Yes, we built our own stanchion with bars that open wider than standard stanchions too allow room for horns to fit through. We also made it so we can open it extra wide when we work with the big bucks. These types of stanchions are offered for sale in more places as the horned goat population is growing.
A long tooth pin brush used to groom dogs is of great help when combing your goat. #1 All Systems has a great pin brush that has no heads on the ends. I have been unable to find it in local stores but the website for the Show Dog Store sells them for about $10.00. http://www.showdogstore.com/index.asp
Use this brush to first comb out the tangles and as much vegetation as you can. Then you need an undercoat rake to comb out the cashmere. It is best to clean off the brush after each stroke to avoid matting the fiber. Sometimes it becomes a real challenge as you are combing to get the cashmere to not stick to your hands, the comb, and anything else it touches because of the static. It is helpful to have a fabric softener sheet around to rub on your hands once in a while.
I use plastic grocery bags to harvest the down into. I can label them with the goat’s information and the date, tie them to the panel by my stanchion and place the fiber in them as I go. They are also light enough that I can weigh the fleece right in them without having to subtract the bags weight. Then they easily tie up to be transported back to the house.
Shearing
Timing is also important when shearing your goats. Ideally you want to shear just before they start to shed. This avoids losing any fiber to shedding and lessens the occurrence of matting. If you are planning to raise goats to shear you have to think of your yield/production and breed for goats with shorter guard hair and dense down production.
Shearing your goats also requires a stanchion, and a quality power shear with a 20 tooth goat comb. If I were looking to buy a set of shears I would purchase one from Premier 1 Supplies. http://www.premier1supplies.com/
Quality shears make shearing a breeze and good maintenance of the shears and the blades saves you time, frustration and money. Blades require a more precise “edge” to cut fine fiber, so you must keep your blades sharp, expect them to need frequent sharpening and keep them oiled as often as every 2 minutes while shearing.
It is important when shearing to start with your youngest, lightest colored goats first, this ensures that if you nick a goat you are not passing a health problem on to your younger goats that your older goats may have, and that you are not contaminating white fiber with dark fiber.
Also you do not want to trim the goats hoofs at the same time you shear to avoid picking up hoof trimmings in your fleece; the processors do not like this! You may not see the importance of these precautions right away but as you do more you will see the wisdom in these steps.
Before you start to shear you need to quickly assess the goats fleece, are you going to want the neck with your premium fleece? If not shear it last or not at all, if you shear it and it is coarser place it in a bag just for neck fiber.
I use the pin brush also before I shear to untangle the guard hair and remove as much vegetation as possible.
Start shearing with the top line first. Begin at the top of the tail head and shear towards the neck. If the top line is full of vegetation shear it off and throw it away. You don’t want this in with the rest of your fleece.
Shearing requires you to be ambidextrous; you will shear the right side of the goat with your right hand and the left side of the goat with your left hand. Standing on the opposite side you are going to shear; lean over the goat and shear up the hind leg to the top line you just cut. This is the breech area. If it is covered with long or short dense guard hair and short coarse fiber don’t keep it. Shear it off and throw it away. It cost you to mail it to the processor and it will degrade your finial product.
Next return the shears to the tail head and shear horizontally from tail to head, tipping the blade down to follow the curve of the goat’s body. You want to avoid second cuts.
Second cut is a term used to describe when you cut a portion of the fleece twice, thus cutting it in half. Continue shearing down the side of the goat in this fashion until all the fleece is off on this side, gather it up and place in it in a bag.
If the lower front leg fiber is short don’t put it in with your premium fleece.
Repeat on the other side of the goat using your other hand to shear horizontally from tail to head.
Areas on the goat to watch to avoid nicking the goat are; coming up the breech area, and just behind the front legs in the arm pit area. Stretching out the goat’s body while shearing is helpful in avoiding nicks. Shearing up the back of the hind legs must be done with care, goats have a major artery in the back leg. You do not want to nick this.
Shearing vertically down the side of the goat should be avoided because of the greater chance of nasty nicks. Nicks happen on the edge of your cutter.
After I have sheared off the fleece I want to keep I than go back and do a clean up around the goats rear, or any other ugly spots that I will not want to look at for the next three months in the pasture.*
