Cashmere fibre for cashmere clothing. A field day was held on-farm at Clinton on Saturday 24 August and we decided to go. We’d been in Roxburgh overnight so drove home and only had 15mins before it was time to drive to Clinton. The goats are an integral part of a 400ha beef and sheep farm.
The farm starts with feral goats and uses specially selected bucks to maximise fine white cashmere fibre in the following generations. New Zealand Cashmere has big plans and an excellent website with heaps of information – they want other NZ farmers to join with them in farming goats for cashmere.
Here’s their ‘cashmere’ website page, a good place to start for background info:
Link: Cashmere
We spent 2-3 hours in the farm woolshed where we saw a good number of goats waiting to be shorn and David Shaw, the farmer, talked to us about farming goats and about cashmere fibre and the market for it.. high-end fashion. We also saw him shear a couple of goats, very different to seeing a sheep shorn.
This is the pen for the farm’s pet goats. I’m extremely focussed on getting my cellphone camera into action and trying to get a decent photo of the energetic, restless, inquisitive animals (photo taken by Nigel).
Aren’t they lovely?
Here’s my best photo from the pet pen.
The farm is focussed on breeding goats for very fine, white, cashmere fibre. (Liz)
The feral goat pen. The only black-and-white goat in the pen was no shrinking violet.. she has attitude! (Liz)
I was happy that Nigel took three photos of the goat with attitude … here they are in the same order that he took them. I love these goofy looks!
Cashmere fibre is fine, very light-weight, soft and warm. It’s ever so gentle, like froth sitting on the hand.
Text by Liz, photos by Liz and Nigel; Exploring Colour (2019)
keywords: fibre, fiber, cashmere, kashmir, South Otago, New Zealand
That really is a goat with attitude. What a character!
-Emma
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I’d love to visit a goat farm. 🙂
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They’re a noisy lot!
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Just looked again at “Baby Goats Talking Back”, that you left in my comments on this goat post. Nigel and I were laughing so much!
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Yes, they are so funny and adorable. I hope they were all milking goats. 🙂
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Goat with attitude is hilarious! She knows how to capture the shot!
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That goat was such a character!
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I am very fond of goats but sadly have an allergy to that wool!!!
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That’s tough Cybele!
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Very sweet faces on these critters!
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Yes, they were all gorgeous irrespective of whether they were the ‘pets’ or not!
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poor little ones! they should be free to run in the meadows, great sadness to see them locked up. I am vegan and I find animal exploitation very sad
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NO.. they’re not being exploited.. they’re being very well looked after and their normal life is outside in pasture. They’re just in the shed waiting to be shorn. They are very healthy animals, full of energy and very alert.
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I’m very very happy for them!!!
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They are lovely. Thanks for sharing!
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That black and white goat is delightful. I’m fond of goats generally, but it looks as though that one has an extra dollop of personality. I love cashmere. I have one sweater, but my real treasure is my cashmere watch cap. Some might think that’s a silly sort of thing to wear out in the weather, but it’s the warmest and most comfortable I’ve ever had, and does well when the winter winds blow down the docks.
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Cashmere must be lovely to wear.. so warm and light. I imagine it’s perfect in the winter cold.
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