Abstract:
Proc. Aust. Soc. Anim. Prod. Vol. 19 A COMPARISON OF SOME FLEECE CHARACTERISTICS OF IRANIAN AND AUSTRALASIAN CARPET WOOL SHEEP M. ESLAMI and G. E. ROBARDS Dept of Wool and Animal Science, University of New South Wales, Kensington, N.S.W. 2033. Fleeces suitable for high quality carpets of intricate design are produced by most of the sheep breeds indigenous to Iran. In contrast, carpet wool production in Australia and New Zealand has relied mainly on coarse fleeces from long-wooled breeds until the recent occurence of the N gene in NZ Romney sheep led to the development of specialist carpet wool breeds such as the Tukidale, Carpetmaster and Drysdale. This paper compares the fleeces grown by Australasian breeds with those from Iranian carpet wool breeds. Data on the fleece characteristics of 13 Iranian sheep breeds, which collectively produce 95 % of Iran' carpet wool, were obtained from Demiraren et al. 1971; Makarechian et al. 1977; Aebosadi 1980, s Farid and Makarechian 1980, and Taherpour 1988. Similar data were derived from New Zealand (Andrews et al. 1987; Meikle et al. 1988; Orwin et al. 1988) and Australian (Cottle 1991) sources for comparison (see results in Table 1). Table 1. The greasy fleece weight (GFW) in female (F) and male (M) sheep, yield, fibre diameter (FD), staple Zealand density, crimp and predominant fibre colour of fleeces from Iranian, WA Australian sheep breeds which produce carpet wool Fleeces from Iranian sheep breeds are generally finer, lower yielding, shorter in staple length and of lower average weight, than those from New Zealand and Australian carpet wool breeds. AEBOSADI, A. M. (1980). Iran-Shiraz University. Animal Science Department. Special report. ANDREWS, R. N., HAWKER, H. and CROSBLE, S. F. (1987). N.Z. J. Agl: 27: 325-31. CO' ITLE, D. (1991). Australian Sheep and Wool Handbook. Inkata Press, Melbourne. DEMIRAREN, A. S., BEHESHTI, R. D., SALIMI, B. A., SALEH, M. and JAFERI, A. (1971). Iran-Karaj Anim. Husb. Res. Inst., Tech. Report No 1. FARID, A. and MAKARECHIAN, M. (1980). Iran J. Agric. Res. 6: 49-59. MAKARECHIAN, M., FARID, A. and SEFIDBAKH, T (1977). Iran J. Agric. Res. 3: 32-9. MEIKLE, H. E., WICKHAM, G. A. and RAE, A. L. (1988). Proc. N.Z. Sot. Anim. Prod. 48: 195-200. ORWIN, D. F. G., RANFORD, S. L. and GEENTY, K. G. (1988) N.Z. J. Agr. 31: 409-14. TAHERPOUR, N. (1988). Iran-Karaj Anim. Husb. Res. Inst. Special Report. 143