Does Cashmere come from Goats or Sheep?

I regularly get CASHMERE SHEEP come up as a search engine term people use when finding my blog.  Cashmere does not come from sheep but from goats. Nor does it come “ from the belly of the rare Pashmina goat situated in the high Himalayas”. Instead it comes from many different races or strains of goats found all over the world.  My own Macaulay goats here were selectively bred from imported stock from the very best cashmere producing animals from many different countries. The resulting Cashmere “mongrel” I have here has stunning cashmere in a hardy healthy goat – what more could I ask!

If you want to know more then refer back to my page here where I go into more detail.

It’s funny but I find some people are just unable to take this information in when they are told that cashmere is a goat product. They are so confused in general about “wool” from various animals. I try very hard to use the word wool only in connection with what sheep produce. I use “fibre” for everything else. This makes the distinction clear but of course it’s not generally observed. Many well know Cashmere companies sell their product talking about “raw cashmere wool” which helps no one! It’s often the same company that talk about fibre “from the belly of the rare Pashmina goat”!

Firstly, NO ONE gathers fibre from the belly of any goat. It’s short, matted and useless – exactly what you expect from something the goat lies down on all the time! Secondly, the word Pashmina when applied to a goat means Cashmere in North West India where the term comes from.  The two words are interchangeable.  If the word is used in a textile context then it means a BLEND of cashmere and silk – often not the best quality of either which is why its blended in the first place!

Sorry to bang on about this yet again but clearly if people are still typing these things into search engines then the message is still not getting through. Do look at my other post which has more detail. In the meantime, here is a pic of one of my bucks. I currently have 26 Cashmere boys all limbering up for the breeding season ahead so life is getting interesting here right now! That’s not to mention 22 Bowmont rams and a couple of Angoras. I need my wits about me at the moment!