Cashmere

The famous producing herds are Asian: Chinese and Mongolian breeds dominate world production, and the finest recorded down, 12 to 13 microns, belongs to the Changthangi of the Indian Himalaya.

American cashmere is younger and assembled rather than inherited: growers selected from existing stock, Spanish and other range goats among them, for animals whose down was worth harvesting. The Livestock Conservancy notes Spanish goats carrying 2 to 3 oz of cashmere.

The fleece is double: a coarse outer guard hair and a soft, extremely fine down underneath. Only the down is cashmere. The down grows from secondary follicles as winter comes on; the guard hair grows all year.

The yield is small. A good animal produces a few hundred grams of down a year, which is why the fiber costs what it does; recorded breed averages run from about 4 to 13 oz, and fiber diameter, the number the price hangs on, runs from about 12 microns in the finest strains to 16.5 in others.

A USDA small-farm guide describes cashmere and Spanish goats as often flighty and high strung, next to the relaxed, docile Angora.

Cashmere goats are traditionally left horned. The Cashmere Goat Association notes that both sexes carry horns, which help shed heat in summer and make good handles, and cashmere goats are sheared standing, unlike Angoras.

Handle with care. The USDA guide warns that a startled goat may jump or flail, that horns are a risk to a handler's eyes, and that horns caught in a fence or the fork of a tree can be life-threatening. Most goats are not aggressive toward people, but horned goats can do serious damage to one another; sharp points can be clipped for safety.

Fiber first. The longest, finest down goes into knitted garments and the shorter down into woven fabrics, and the separated guard hair goes into rugs and the hair canvas used in tailored garments, according to the USDA guide. Buyers pay on the weight of down or dehaired fiber, not the whole fleece.

Meat second. The American cashmere industry is built largely on Spanish meat goats from the Southwest and Australian feral goats selected for fiber, and large, meaty goats bring in more when sold for meat or culled.

Like other goats they are browsers, and the USDA guide notes their use against weeds such as leafy spurge.

The harvest is the work. The down must be separated from the guard hair, either by combing during the natural spring shed or by shearing and dehairing afterwards.

Otherwise a cashmere goat is a goat: the down is a winter undercoat most goats grow in some amount, so the type has no special climate or feed demands beyond any brush goat's.

The trade is labor and honesty about what you are buying. Because there is no closed registry, the quality of down varies enormously between animals sold under the same name, and the only way to know is to have the fleece tested for diameter and down percentage.

There is now a place for paper: the Cashmere Goat Association launched a database in 2019 that doubles as a registry for goats meeting the North American Cashmere Goat qualifications, and it runs fleece evaluations by recognized judges. Use it as evidence, not as a guarantee; the fleece test is still the document that matters.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.