Royal Welsh 2011 Supreme Champion and Reserve

We have been keeping dairy goats for over fifty five years and when angora goats were first available here we bought three embryos which became four doe kids and an imported buck from New Zealand. At this time we moved to Wales and successfully showed these animals at the local shows and took our exams to become qualified Judges ourselves.

A little later imports were allowed in a long winded procedure from Texas and there has been some South African blood lines imported during the last few years. Importing is extremely difficult but over the years the breeding of these animals has produced some excellent animals with very fine fleeces giving some of the best mohair in the world. We now run about thirty animals and have from time to time bought in some excellent bucks to continue to upgrade our flock.

These animals are shorn twice a year and we have some of the fleece spun into yarn which is then sold in our Preseli Mohair Centre showroom. The rest of the clip is then sent to the pool run by British Mohair Marketing and sold on the open market. At the present time this is sent to South Africa for sale where there is a huge mohair industry. We keep the buck kids until after the third clip when they are either sold for breeding or allowed to grow some mohair to a length which is suitable for tanning. We use the meat ourselves which is extremely lean like venison but has a similar grain and looks of lamb. We select the doe kids we want to retain and sell the remainder for breeding.