SHEARING AND PACKING MOHAIR.
The goat should be shorn before he commences to shed, as the mohair loses its weight and luster after the shedding process begins. There are a few goats, which, under certain kinds of food and climatic conditions, will not shed their fleeces, but most goats will shed, and even goats which have carried their fleeces over a year in one section, may shed if they are moved a few miles and the food is changed. A class of non-shedders would be very valuable, but so far a distinctive class of non-shedders, under any and all conditions, and which transmit this peculiarity, has not been identified. The Angora goat will usually commence to shed early in the spring, or as soon as a few warm bright days come.
In some sections of the country it is thought advisable to shear twice a year. Many points in favor of this method are advocated. It is claimed that the price realized for the two medium length, or short stapled fleeces, together with the increased number of pounds shorn in the two clippings a year, pays much better than the one long staple fleece which can be shorn from the same animal for a year's growth. There are many reasons both for and against shearing twice a year. The mills prefer long mohair, or at least fiber more than six inches in length (combing length). They pay the best price for this class of mohair, and it must be left to the individual to decide whether it pays him best to shear once or twice a year. At present possibly one-third of the Angoras in the United States are shorn twice a year, and the remaining two-thirds only once. In Asia Minor one finds the goat shearer using a pair of long bladed scissors to cut the mohair. The goats are shorn in the spring, and only once during the year. The animal's feet are tied, and then by using both hands, one at either end of the scissors, the goat is shorn. Recently some Englishman has introduced an ordinary spring sheep shear, but most of the natives prefer the scissors.
To-day one finds the hand shearer and the machine shearer at work in America. The hand shearer should use a pair of short bladed (about five inch blade) sheep shears. This is to prevent the point of the shear from cutting mohair, which is not intended to be clipped with that particular stroke of the shear. If, for instance, the shearer is clipping the mohair along the sides of the animal, and the point of the shear cuts some of the mohair at least three inches out from the body, this stubble is shorn again (double cut) when the shearer gets to this place, and this three-inch mohair is too short to be of much value. It will be combed out at the mill as noil. An expert shearer can clip about the same number of range goats that he can range sheep—from ninety to one hundred and twenty a day.
The machine shear is rapidly taking the place of the hand shear. It clips the mohair close to the skin and almost does away with double cutting. It requires less skill to shear with a machine shear, and it does the work more uniformly. There is also less danger of cutting the animal. The machines do the work very rapidly.
After the goat is shorn the fleece should be collected and rolled into a bundle, "bump," and placed in a sack or bale. It should not be tied, as the mill men object to the particles of string which remain in the mohair and disfigure the manufactured product. Any colored fleeces, discolored mohair, or mohair containing objectionable features, such as burrs, straw, etc., can be placed in separate parcels. The kid mohair can be kept by itself, and the wether and doe mohair can be separately packed. The long mohair should be kept separate from short stuff. Thus one grades the mohair to some extent on the farm, and he has a better idea of what the clip should bring.
If the mohair is to be shipped a long distance, it will pay to bale the fleeces, as compact bales occupy much less space than sacks. The freight rates are usually less upon baled mohair than they are upon the sacked material. The cost of baling the mohair is a little less than the cost of sacking.
ne can learn very little about breeding the Angora goat from the Turk. As we know from Tchikacheff's work, which was published over fifty years ago, cold winters often killed many of the Angoras in Asia Minor, and the Turk then imported from more favored districts common bucks or does to breed to the Angora. This was before the great demand for mohair, occasioned by the increase in manufacturing plants at Bradford, England, caused the Turkish mohair raisers to resort to all manner of means to increase the supply of raw material.
To-day the Turk is treading in the paths of his forefathers. What was good enough for them, certainly ought to be good enough for him, so he reasons. He eats with his fingers, cooks on a brazier, sits on the floor, eats, drinks, sleeps and works all in the same room, and keeps his wives in seclusion.
When he comes to breeding the Angora he leaves that to his servants, if he be wealthy enough to have any. Most of the breeders cannot read or write. They have never traveled. They have no ambition, and they know nothing of the principles of selective breeding. As a natural consequence the Angora goat of to-day has not improved, nor is he likely to improve under Turkish management. One large breeder who supplied bucks to some tributary country, said that he thought that it was a shame to castrate a buck, no matter how bad he might be. The Turk separates the bucks from the does at breeding season, as Asia Minor has cold weather late in the spring, and the danger of losing kids, if they come too early, is great. When the bucks are turned with the flock they are allowed to run until the next breeding season, and all of the bucks, regardless of quality or quantity, are allowed to run with the does.
When the first few Angoras arrived in America the natural procedure was to cross them upon the common short-haired goat of this country. It was a new industry, and many wanted to try the Angora. Very slowly the Angora, or the cross-bred animals were scattered over the United States. Stories were told of the wonderful things for which the mohair was used, and some supposedly reliable authorities quoted mohair at $8.00 a pound, as has been stated. Companies were started, and of course the supply of good Angoras, that is, goats which would shear about four pounds of mohair (worth at that time about seventy-five cents or a dollar a pound), was limited. Men bought any goat which had a trace of Angora blood in him as a thoroughbred Angora. A few years, however, demonstrated the fact that a common goat, with a little admixture of Angora blood, did not produce either the quality or the quantity of fleece wanted. Only a few of the more persistent breeders continued the experiment and their investigations. They sent and went to the home of the Angora, and brought more of the original animals to America. It took the American breeders about thirty years to find out just what the Angora goat was and how he should be handled. During that thirty years large flocks of common goats, which had been crossed with the Angora, and which might be properly termed "grade flocks," had been formed. Only a few thoroughbred flocks, that is, flocks of the original Angora, as he came from Turkey, were in existence.