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Animals that give wool


Animals that give wool.

The wool is obtained shearing, by hand or with mechanical shears, the live animal;

this operation is generally performed once a year in late spring;

sometimes a second shearing is carried out in autumn, obtaining shorter fibers (bistosa wool). The amount of wool that can be obtained from each animal varies from 0.5 to 7 kg per year depending on the breed, age, sex and environmental conditions in which it lives.

Very often animals are shorn without prior washing and give a so-called filthy wool because is full of dirt and greasy skin; sometimes they are washed in running water before shearing to remove all or part of the water-soluble fats and other impurities; the wool obtained from these sheep is called “skipped” and has a yield of 15-20% higher than the dirty wool.

Wool is obtained from various animals and a more or less valuable yarn is obtained depending on the species, let’s see which are the most widespread and used:

-Lambswool is obtained from the shearing of sheep’s lambs and is a very soft and precious wool;

Animali che danno la lana
Baby sheep

-The Merinos wool is obtained from the shearing of Merinos sheep, an ancient Spanish breed, but now widespread in Australia and New Zealand;

the merino wool yarn is very soft and warm.

Animali che danno la lana
Merinos sheep

-Cashmere is obtained from the underfleece (called duvet) of the cashmere goats and is a very precious and warm wool; it is hypoallergenic due to the lack of lanolin, the fat contained in sheep’s wool.

Animali che danno la lana
Cashmere goats
Curiosity: the finest cashmere is the white one, because the goat tends to have spots on the fleece and only the breast part is used to obtain white.

-The Mohair is obtained from the Angora goat, originally from Turkey and whose farms are concentrated in South Africa, it is obtained a wool with very long and silky fibers, elastic and warm.

Animali che danno la lana
Angora goat

-Alpaca, Lama and Vicogna are obtained from three different species of camelids native to North America; today they are widely used in South America, especially in the Andes, even if the breeding is more or less widespread all over the world with great success.

Alpaca
Alpaca llama

[societaitalianaalpaca.it – sialpaca.it]

-L’Angora si ottiene dall’omonima razza di conigli, anche questi originari della Turchia e che ormai si alleva anche in Cile, Europa, Stati Uniti e soprattutto Cina; se ne ricava una lana pregiatissima e caldissima, la fibra ha una bassa resistenza e per questo molto spesso è usata in mischia con altri materiali.

Animali che danno la lana
Angora rabbit

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Animali che danno la lana
Camel

-Camel wool always originates in North America; after the migrations that took place in prehistoric times and various crossings, it became the animal we know today; it has a classic beige fleece and a very soft and compact wool is obtained.

-The quiviut is the most valuable and expensive wool; it is obtained from the undercoat of the musk ox, native to North America and now widespread in Canada, Greenland and Alaska.

Animali che danno la lana
Quiviut

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