Montana State University Extension Sheep and Wool Specialist Brent Roeder joined the ASI Research Update podcast this month to discuss Bioharvesting Wool: An Alternative to Shearing.
“They really got into bioharvesting in the 1990s in Australia,” said Roeder, who spent about three weeks traveling Australia this past summer and attended the Australian sheep industry’s LambEx conference. “They identified an epidermal growth factor which caused a break in the wool. It didn’t work real well and it wasn’t very uniform. In the end, it took longer and cost more to harvest the wool.”
But researchers in the country never gave up on bioharvesting as a way to combat a shortage of shearers and to develop a system that would be less physically demanding on shearers.“ About three to four years ago, they were pretty sure they had it figured out,” Roeder said. “Looks like to me they are using a protein they isolated from corn. They give the animal a shot and it works a little bit like chemotherapy, where you start losing your hair.”
But the new product doesn’t create a break like the original efforts at bioharvesting, Roeder said. It creates a weak point in the wool that makes it easier to remove as the wool can simply be pulled away from the skin without injuring the animal. Now, several companies are working on developing tools to assist in that process.
Check out the full Podcast HERE
