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NOTE – Some are subjective and require personal judgement and interpretation. Some terms will have different meanings in different regions
| TERM | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| Measurement | Care needs to be taken when interpretating individual goat tests. A variety of testing services and assessments have been used for the supporting buck information in this catalogue. All have margins of error. Fibre attributes also can vary across the body of the goat, and from the same animal within one season and over its lifetime. No one test is definitive of the quality of an animal so should be balanced against other measures and personal judgement to meet personal breeding objectives. It is more important when breeding to first select the flock and goat family background that allign with your breedng objectives before choosing the individual goat. Objective measurements are always more accurate than people. Humans have different likes and mixes which is the "art" in animal breeding. We haven't breed the prefect animal yet. |
| Records and information | Our best endevour has been made to supply all the information we have on these Bucks. We have a gap in information bewteen 2005 and 2013. We were single sire mating over this time but were not collecting intensively. We also loss some records due to a computer hard drive failure. Some measures are also missed on goats for a variety of reasons. Where "records not available" or "computer data lost" recorded as NA (not available) |
| TFW (grams) | Total fleece weight in grams (shorn guard hair and cashmere down) |
| Y% | Yeild - Down content of fleece expressed as a weight as a percentage of the total fleece. Yeild can be assessed subjectively by trained classers by classing fleeces within bands of % or calculated more objectively by algorithms or machine separation during fibre testing. Care needs to be taken as fibre may include grease and moisture in raw fibre and this yield will differ from cleaned fibre yeild. Yeild should ideally be medium to high. Low yeilding fleeces will incur greater costs in dehairing and return less to the producer per kg of dehaired cashmere. CAUTION: This figure may vary significantly during the lifetime of the animal depending on nutrition, stress, pregnancey, lacation etc. |
| TDW (grams) | Total down weight in grams. Down content of the fleece in grams, calculated from the total fleece weight multipled by the yeild |
| MFD (um) | Mean fibre diameter in micrometers. In New zealand and Australia only fibres <35 microns have been measured. This alligns with the down component of the cashmere goat fleeces |
| SD (um) | Standard Deviation of MFD in microns. The measure of distribution of dispersion of diameters about the mean diameter. The smaller the number, the less dispersion about the mean which is perferable. |
| CV% | Covariance or Coefficient of Variation. This also is a measure for the assessment comparison of different animals. The smaller the CV(%), the less variation in fibre diameter. Relates the standard deviation to the mean. This figure is far more meaningful than SD. NB - High CV% or SD (um) in kid fleece may indicate the presence of kid guard hair. |
| Colour | All kids are given a colour assessment when tagged. Grades are Superwhite, White, Cream, Gold, Ginger, Brown, Blue, Black. This is an indication of future colour and for buck progeny colour assessment |
| Mean Curvature (°/mm) | Curvature is an influential measurement in the overall performance of fibre. Measurement of the degree of curve or crimp in the cashmere. In cashmere it is not usually to see a defined crimp as in wool. Curvature influences human factors of handle and feel in garments, and yarn attributes of loft and bounce. It is the characteristic that enables the fibre to be spun into a lighter yarn through needing less fibres in the cross section of the yarn, at the same time giving greater loft or fill, more air entrapment, bounce and drape and a softer feel caused by the sensory friction of mostly touching the roundness of the curve. Counterintuitively Australian research associates softness with lower curvature values at an equal micron fibre. |
| Medulation | These are hollow hair like fibres. They may show up as fine guard hairs which are hard to removed when dehairing. Their different structure may affect yarn colour as they reflect light and take up dyes differently. They can create a different feel a garment. |
| Intermediate fibres | These fibres usually fall in micron ranges that fall at the coarse edge of cashmere down fibres. They can be very fine guard hairs or mohair type fibres from crossbreds. Intermediate fleeces should be eliminated as they are hard to remove during dehairing and cause issues in yarns and garments. These can be the same or similar to medulated fibres. |
| Handle | Fine micron fibre, curvature of fibre, cashmere staple length vs guard hair length, cashmeredown yeild - all influence handle or softness |
| F1, F2, F3 etc | F1, F2 is widely used by livestock industry to denote the first generation of a planned breeding program - filial or daughter. Feral or farmed feral, F1 - 1st generation, F2 - 2nd generation etc. Beyond F2 farmers will generally regard animals as cashmere goats and make assessment on whether they suit their requirements. Buyers should seek production-related information eg average flock per head production and micron, kidding percentage, liveweights etc. |
| EBV diameter | Estimated breeding value for cashmere fibre diameter of the second year's fleece. |
| EBV Down weight | Estimated breeding value for cashmere down weight of the second year's fleece. |
| EBV McG Index | Estimated breeding value for McGregor Index of the second year's fleece. McG index is explained at http://cashmeremerrrit.com/ |
| Merrrit Grade | Australian Cashmere Growers Association cashmere genetcic evaluation program. This is explained at http://cashmeremerrrit.com/ |
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Style | Our goats cashmere is assessed for style. This is to some degree subjective combining several factors such as length, crimp, degree of brightness or lustre. Also associated with attributes of Handle |
| Cover | Ideally cashmere should grow over the full body. Goats are assessed and given a rating at shearing. |
| Down length | Is an important factor for selection. It is highly correlated to down weight so selecting for down staple length also selects for higher down weights. For viable shearing and processing down length should be longer than 35 mm. Short fibres get lost in the dehairing process. Traditional source cashmere is typically 35 to 45 mm long. Longer cashmere has the ability to be used in worsted style spun yarns and thred. |
| Density | Density contributes to Total Down Weight. Density results from more fibres being grown per area and delivers a thicker feel and greater compactness of the fleece |
| Fineness | Cashmere is graded on micron ranges. "0 grades" - are <15.5 um; "1 grades" 15.5 to 17.0 um averaging less than 16.5 um; "2 grades" 17 to 18.5 um; >18.5 um Generally regarded as Cashgora even though it may have and exibit cashmere down type attributes. |
| Evenness | It is desirable to have a fleece with an even cashmere diameter across the boby from the neck to the britch. Some goats have stronger fibre up onto the neck. Care should be taken when doing fibre tests these can be misleading if taken from only one point from the body. "3 point" body samples or grid testing boards can help obtain more representative fleece testing samples. |
| Guard Hair length | Cashmere goats can have long, medium or short Guard Hair lengths. GH length is independent of cashmere down length. GH length contibutes the Guard Hair component of Total Fleece Weight and Yield of down component of the total fleece. GH can be selected against and minimised on the goat. This depends on the local environment as protection for weather is a consideration. In early stages of breeding and selection Total Down Weight and Fibre Definition are more important selection criteria as all fibre requires "Dehairing" first stage processing |
| Handle | Cashmere is renown for its extremely soft touch and feel. This combined with warmth and lightness, makes handle the "selling point" for Cashmere garments. |
| Colour | Cashmere goats come in all colours. What is seen when looking at a goat is prodominantly the Guard Hair colour. This influences the cashmere down colour grading but not the down colour itself. The cashmere colour can range from white, to grey and brown. Grades used are influenced by these colours and reflect cashmere colours of dehaired down. WW - white cashmere with white guard hair; WC - white cashmere light ginger guard hair; GY - Grey, cashmere generally white or slight creamy colour and may contain a few coloured guards following dehairing than haven't been able to be removed; BR - brown, generally produced from dark brown or black goats. Some dark coloured goats may produce light coloured down which goes into grey lines. White fibres can also be a contaminant in Brown cashmere the same way Dark fibres are in White goats |
| Fibre type - Cashgora | Cashgora is a crossbred fibre and unacceptible. This fibre is generally above 18.5 um and was a consequence of crossbreeding programs to multily up Angora Mohair producing goats. The G4 - 1st X had a fleece that had broadly speaking three fibre components: coarse guard hair, a fine down "cash" component and long shiny and straighter "intermediate" fibre or "gora". The fine mohair type fibres are a serious fault and linger as "intermediate" or "shiners". These are difficult to remove at dehairing as they affect yarn dying by taking the dyes differently and showing up in yarns. Upgrading cashmere animals today will come off base does that are prodominantly feral types or possibly dairy origin. |
| Definition | Is the ratio or range of variation between cashmere down fibres and guard hairs. Ideally cashmere goats should have a sharp distinction between the down component of the fleece and the guard hair. There should be little or no overlap with guard hairs being at least 3x's the diameter of the down. Combined with tight SD and CV this improves and eases dehairing leading to higher quality recovered down that has less fibre breakage |
