CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The AM2 dehairing technology reduces the objectionable fibers content of shorn fleeces. Nonetheless, it also reduces fiber length and the final yield is affected by the successive runs through the dehairing machine, though it allows specifying the number of passes required for each lot. The aim of this work is to establish the number of passes that the machine should make until optimal performance is reached from an objectionable fibers content, fiber length, fiber diameter and yields to dehairing perspective. Work was carried out on fiber sheared from Argentine north Patagonian goats. From each run, samples were extracted for processing at the laboratory, and measurements comprised: yield to dehairing (%Y), objectionable fiber content (w/w) (FOC), average fiber length (FL) and average fiber diameter (FD).I t was concluded that the lowest %Y was obtained in run 10, the minimum FOC in run 6, the lowest FL in run 7 (2.6cm) and the lowest FD in run 5 (18.1microns). It is concluded that, if 4 runs are assumed to be optimal to obtain less than 1% of objectionable fibers, a %Y: 35 - 37%, FOC: 0.2%, FL: 3.5cm and FD: 18.3μm would be obtained.