Abstract :
The income of the nomads in Kerman Province depends mainly on Raeini goats that produce
meat, milk and cashmere. This paper assesses the cashmere quality and its variation
in Raeini herds to determine the scope for improvement. In April 2010 fleece weights (FW)
and midside fleece samples were taken from a total of 686 male and female cashmere
goats of 1, 2 and 3 years of age belonging to 29 herds. The herds were randomly chosen in
the summer grazing area of nomads within 20 km of the city of Baft, province of Kerman,
South of Iran, the main cashmere producing area in Iran. Cashmere yield (CY) was determined
from the weight of dehaired cashmere to weight of shorn fiber. Cashmere fibers
were analyzed using an OFDA instrument. A general mixed linear model including sex, age
and sex by age interaction as fixed effects and herd as random effect was used to analyze
the data and measure the relationships between different cashmere characteristics and
fleece attributes. The overall means ± standard deviations were for fleece weights (FW)
507 ± 183 g, cashmere yield (CY) 56.5 ± 12.2%, mean fiber diameter (MFD) 19.7 ± 1.5 m,
fiber diameter standard deviation (FDSD) 4.5 ± 0.6 m, fiber curvature (FC) 62.9 ± 8.5◦/mm
and staple length (SL) 54.2 ± 7.0 mm, respectively. Herd effect was significant for all traits
except for SL and sex by age effect was only significant for MFD. One year old males and
females had finer cashmere than older goats. FW and FDSD were higher in males and CY and
FC was higher in young animals. Pearson correlation between MFD and FC, FDSD and MFD,
MFD and FW was −0.647, 0.399 and 0.211 respectively. Raeini cashmere is white, has an
excellent SL and FC but is relatively coarse. Given the differences between and within herds
there seems to be substantial scope to improve the commercial value of Raeini cashmere.
