Silkiness and elasticity as breeding aims in Karakul lambs.

Descriptions of existing pelt characteristics for 1083 Karakul lambs were examined and general hair quality as well as the hair texture of the body and extremities was evaluated and grouped in a silky plus, silky minus and elastic group. The arithmetic mean of the hair texture of the body of each of these groups respectively was used as a fixed value to evaluate the deviation of the arithmetic mean of the hair texture of their extremities. All the extremity mean values were significantly (P ≤ 0,01) lower than their respective mean body values. Silky plus lambs' extremities showed a higher arithmetic mean than the silky minus group, which in turn showed a higher mean than the elastic group. Although these differences were not significant (P ≤ 0,05) the hair quality of the extremities of the first-mentioned group is still better than that of the latter. Therefore, although silky and elastic hair textures have similar scores, this tendency showed that silky texture is the better breeding aim to improve hair quality.