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Monthly Changes in Fineness, Variability, and Medullation in Hairy Lambs

United States Department of Agriculture¹

Abstract

True wool is found in wild or primitive types of sheep only as a short undercoat concealed by a long, coarse hair. The preponderance of true wool fibers in domesticated wool-producing breeds presumably is due to long continued selection. The fact that objectionable fibers having hairlike properties still are present in some wool sheep, particularly as lambs, indicates that the primitive coat has not been completely eliminated. In addition to the inherent tendency for particular follicles to produce certain types of fibers the wide range of environmental conditions to which sheep are subjected may produce important changes in the character of the fibers.

Mathews (1904), Bowman (1908), Hawkesworth (1920), and Von Bergen and Krauss (1942) described and illustrated various types of animal fibers. Dry (1937, 1938) conducted studies on the inheritance of halo-hairs in lambs and concluded "you get that for which you breed." Wilson (1929) described different types of medullated wool fibers and reviewed the literature on this subject.

¹ U. S. Sheep Experiment Station and Western Sheep Breeding Laboratory, Dubois, Idaho.