Wool characteristics of poonchi sheep

Abstract

A total of 168 wool samples of Poonchi sheep of both sexes were collected randomly and analyzed for different wool production traits at Fleece testing laboratory, Kartholi, Jammu. The wool traits included in the present study were crimps per inch (CPI), staple length (SL) (cm), clean wool yield (CWY) (%), fibre diameter (FD) (µ), medullation (M) (%), wool count (WC) (no.) and range in diameter (RD) (µ).Wool colour in Poonchi sheep was white, black and different shades of black and white. The overall averages for CPI, SL, CWY, FD, M, WC and RD lower & RD upper were 8.67±0.18, 3.82±0.07 cm, 63.14±0.23%, 24.99±0.13 µ, 2.22±0.19%, 58.13±0.17 nos and 11.75±0.07 & 39.74±0.31, respectively. The Co-efficient of variations (CV) for all the traits under study was very low to medium. The highest CV (%) was obtained for medullation. The correlation values ranges from -0.691 between FD and WC to 0.654 between CPI and M. The values of analysis of wool parameters suggested that wool of Poonchi sheep is of moderate fine type.