Postnatal development of the skin follicle population in the chinese alashan left banner white cashmere goat

Abstract

Abstract The most precious textile fibre produced by the Chinese Alashan Left Banner White Cashmere goat is known as Baby Cashmere which is the hair produced during their first 6 months of life. This fleece is 1 μm finer than regular cashmere and nowadays is harvested by shearing the kids at 6 months of age. Seasonal variation in follicle activity was studied in the skin of eleven female goat kids born on January 2010 in the Station for Livestock Improvement of Alashan, Left Banner, Inner Mongolia (P.R. China) (latitude 38° 24′ N and longitude 104° 42′ E). Nine consecutive monthly skin biopsies (from March until November) were used to monitoring the number of active primary and secondary follicle and the number of inactive secondary follicles. The recorded data were used to calculate the percentage of inactive secondary follicles and the ratio of secondary to primary follicles. The number of active primary follicles showed low variability across the sampling period. On the contrary, the number of active secondary follicles decreased from March until June and then sharp increased until its maximum value in August when the kids were 7 months old. The percentage of inactive secondary follicles progressively increased from April to its maximum values in June when the goats were 5–6 months old. Then, the percentage was strongly reduced from July until October and finally has risen in the last observation in November. The ratio of secondary to primary follicle started to decrease from March and remained to its lower values until July when the kids were 6 months old. From July the ratio dramatically increased and gained its maximum values in August when the goats are 7 months old and finally slowly decreased until the last observation in November. The study suggests that goats born in January could shed the baby fiber between July and August, however, trials of combing are needed to assess whether or not the fleeces are actually shed.