Wool
Wool comes from sheep, goat, yak and some other animals. These wool-yielding animals bear hair on their body. the hairy skin of the sheep has two types of fibres that form its fleece: (i) the coarse beard hair, and (ii) the fine soft under-hair close to the skin. The fine hair provide the fibres for making wool. Some breeds of sheep
possess only fine under-hair. Their parents are specially chosen to give birth to sheep which have only soft underhair. This process of selecting parents for obtaining special characters in their offspring, such as soft under hair in sheep, is termed ‘selective breeding’.
For obtaining wool, sheep are reared. Their hair is cut and processed into wool.
Sheep are reared in many parts of our country for wool.
Some Indian breeds of sheep
The wool which is used for knitting sweaters or for weaving shawls is the finished product of a long process. The processing of fibre into wool can be represented as follows:
Shearing → Scouring → Sorting → Cleaning of burrs → Rolling → Dyeing
Silk fibres are also animal fibres. Silkworms spin the ‘silk fibres’. The rearing of silkworms for obtaining silk is called sericulture.
Life history of silk moth
The female silk moth lays eggs, from which hatch larvae which are called caterpillars or silkworms. They grow in size and when the caterpillar is ready to enter the next stage of its life history called pupa.
The caterpillar secretes fibre made of a protein which hardens on exposure to air and becomes silk fibre. Soon the caterpillar completely covers itself by silk fibres and turns into pupa. This covering is known as cocoon. The further development of the pupa into moth continues inside the cocoon.
From cocoon to silk
The most common silk moth is the mulberry silk moth. The silk fibre from the cocoon of this moth is soft, lustrous and elastic and can be dyed in beautiful colours.
For obtaining silk, moths are reared and their cocoons are collected to get silk threads.
A female silk silk moth lays hundreds of eggs at a time and The eggs are stored carefully on strips of cloth or paper and sold to silkworm farmers. The farmers keep eggs under hygienic conditions and under suitable conditions of temperature and humidity.
The larvae, called caterpillars or silkworms, eat day and night and increase enormously in size.
The silk fibres separate out. The process of taking out threads from the cocoon for use as silk is called reeling the silk. Reeling is done in special machines, which unwind the threads or fibres of silk from the cocoon. Silk fibres are then spun into silk threads, which are woven into silk cloth by weavers.