David Shaw has been on a 35-year goat fibre journey on his sheep and beef farm in South Otago.
It began with 50 multi-coloured feral goats and now, through selective breeding, he runs more than 700 creamy white Hēpara Cashmere goats.
"Our animals today are probably producing about three times the amount of fibre than what we did when we first started," he says.
Shaw believes that their fine and fluffy cashmere fibre is cut out for the world's top fashion brands.
"It's very attractive to garment manufacturers because the cashmere fibre is exceptionally warm and light and soft for its weight," he says.
David checks the fibre on one of the goats Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
His does (or nanny goats) each grow around 400 grams of fleece a year, averaging 16 microns (the measurement of the diameter of the fibre).
For their first fleece, hoggets produce 180 grams at around 14 microns.
So what would a farmer get paid now for this 14- to 16-micron cashmere fibre?
"Around $125 to $150 a kilo and it's basically our most profitable animal now," Shaw says.
Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Goats are shorn in early spring.
Having to send the fibre overseas for processing has been a problem in the past.
"After shearing, the coarse fibre needs to be separated from the fine cashmere and it takes a pretty special machine to be able to do that successfully."
Fortunately, Woolyarns in Wellington has come to the party.
The renowned yarn engineers have invested in a fibre processing plant to make an all-New Zealand cashmere supply chain a reality.
Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Back on the family farm, David says his goat herd does well to complement his sheep and cattle.
Goats graze from the top of the pasture down, whereas sheep graze from the bottom up.
"They take out all the seed heads, all the thistles and weeds. They love things like briar, blackberry, broom, wilding pines, so they're really great at tidying up weeds which would otherwise have to be controlled by chemical means."
Despite years of breeding work aimed at producing white, low-micron cashmere fibre, David is still optimistic about the future.
"The hill country needs to become more profitable and find new strings to its bow, and there's a huge opportunity to actually integrate goats into existing systems and capture the benefits that they can add."
Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
