So THAT'S Why Cashmere Is So Expensive?

There’s nothing quite like the soft touch of cashmere on your skin. It’s hard to imagine that the impossibly soft material is made from anything besides the threads of clouds and rainbows ― and it’s usually so expensive that you’d believe it if it were. But do you actually know what it’s made from?
Shockingly, it’s not clouds or rainbows. It is made from goats. Yes, you read that correctly. Cashmere comes from cashmere goats, the only animals that can produce those dreamy, luxurious, highly coveted fibers. 

Pam Haendle, a cashmere goat farmer in Central New York, started farming cashmere goats after retiring and has anywhere from between 55 goats in the winter to 90 in the summer on her farm. She provided some insight as to why cashmere goods are so expensive.
“A single cashmere goat does not produce a whole lot. You only harvest the fibers once a year, and most of us do so by combing the undercoat, which sheds yearly. You can get between six and eight ounces from a really good goat initially, but once it’s processed you’re not likely to get more than four ounces back,” she said. 
To clarify, the “undercoat” is not the hair you’re seeing on the goats in the photo above. The undercoat is closer to the goat’s skin, and must be separated from the outer layer of hair.
That’s why, Haendle said, she has been told “it takes about four goats to make one sweater.”
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Source: Science - The Huffington Post - January 13, 2017 Category: Science Source Type: news