Deck 6: Wool and Mohair

Question 1

What are the primary traits affecting wool quality?

Answer 1

The major characteristics or primary traits that add value to the wool fleeces are yield, crimp, fiber diameter, purity, color, strength and staple length. The undesirable fleeces have high variation in the diameter of fiber and the diameter of fiber also affects the crimp nature.
So, irregularity in the diameter results production of coarser wools. The fleece must have bulky nature; if it does not possess bulky nature then it is an undesirable fleece. Long length fleece are more value than the shorter length fibers.

Question 2

Describe the types of undesirable fleeces.

Answer 2

The sheep's are the animals that produce wool. The two major factors that control or affect the production of wool are breeding and diet of sheep. If the sheep has low breeding capability and feed with diet contains less than 8% of protein, then it produces low quality fleeces. However, sometimes the fleeces would be mixed with farm dust like vegetable matter, like grass seeds, prickly seeds, etc.
The major types of undesirable fleeces are burry, chaffy and cotted. The burry fleeces have vegetable matter, like grass seeds, prickly seeds, etc and they binds persistently to the wool fibers. The chaff has vegetable materials like grass, hay and straw, etc. The cotted has entangled and matted fibers.

Question 3

Compare the three methods of determining wool grade.

Answer 3

The sheep's are the animals that produce wool. The two major factors that control or affect the production of wool are breeding and diet of sheep. If the sheep has low breeding capability and feed with diet contains less than 8% of protein, then it produces low quality fleeces. The major characteristics or primary traits that add value to the wool fleeces are yield, crimp, fiber diameter, purity, color, strength and staple length. So, the wool grading methods looks for above stated characteristics.
The three major methods that are involved in the grading of wool are The American grade or blood, the micron diameter method and the spinning count system. For example, the American grade methods look for wool with fine diameter. The fine wool has different diameters, which include ½, 3/8, and 1/4 th blood, etc. Here, the 1/4 th blood wool is crude, whereas 5/2-blood is fine wool with small diameter.

Question 4

What are the seven body regions of a sheep and the characteristics of wool from each?

Question 5

Describe the breeds typically affiliated with the various classes of wool.

Question 6

Describe domestic and global wool production.

Question 7

Describe the wool marketing process.

Question 8

Name the fibers associated with sheep, angora goats, and hogs.

Question 9

Describe the structure of a wool fiber.

Question 10

Compare and contrast the structure of mohair and wool.

Question 11

What are the characteristics of undesirable fleeces?

Question 12

How does diet affect wool production?