Harvest Time at Princess Farms

I know January/February may be a strange time to think of harvest, but that’s when my cashmere goats are ‘ripe’. 

Some people believe cashmere comes from a rare shy, demure exotic jungle creature, I have to break it to you it comes from a goat, a pretty obnoxious in your face kind of goat at that.

The trick is to catch your goats when they are ripe, this is when the cashmere comes out when brushed, but the guard hairs stay attached to the goat.  We brush our goats to remove the cashmere, although you can shear them.  If you shear you end up with a mixture of guard hair and cashmere and have naked goats, which is not good when the temperature still drops to -40oC. 

The brushed fibre is a mostly cashmere with a few stray guard hairs, this is sent to the mill for dehairing, a process which removes the guard hair.  The mill charges by incoming weight, which is another reason why brushing is more cost effective than shearing.  Sometimes I fantasize about shearing my whole herd as it could be done in the time it takes to brush one. The goats produce roughly 4-6oz of fibre before processing.  When I was in the mill with a bag of my fibre someone asked if it was from one animal, sadly it was from my herd…..  The goats produce a large volume of cashmere, but it is like warm fuzzy air and weighs almost nothing, so actually you can do a lot with 1oz of fibre.

Most of my cashmere comes from the back and shoulders, like with a sheep fleece.  I find there is very little cashmere on their underbellies and nothing in their beards.  The girls have beards as well! Quality of cashmere varies wildly throughout the world; if it is cheap there is a reason.  Cheap cashmere has an almost non-existent staple length which means it is more likely to pill, harder to spin, etc.   My goats have long fibre.  I think it is something about -40oC which makes them grow such lovely long cashmere.  It makes me want to rush out and buy a new cashmere twinset, sadly anywhere with a swim up bar is out of the question with this many mouths to feed.

I have read spinning cashmere is like spinning cotton, again this all comes down to the quality of fibre and the staple length.  I have spun some really heinous cotton and am yet to banish my cotton spinning demons.  I find cashmere in general a lot easier than cotton.

All my cashmere is destined for yarn this year.  I will have very limited quantities so if you are interested please send me your details and I will notify you when it comes back from the mill, before it goes on my website for general sale. Drop me a line with the enquiry form.

If anyone really wants to know about brushing feel free to visit, I still have 12 more to brush……….

About the model

Felipa is the daughter of Cher (aka the Cher-minator, ask the dog about this nickname) and is a mostly black goat with brown cashmere.  She is my prettiest goat; notice the stripes on her legs.  She also won the prestigious title of “Mother of the year 06’ at our farm.