Show kai karakul abul sheep raising Is profitable industry rancher finds good market for rich furs bieber calif california industries which already include a wide variety have added a new and energetic rival to their ranks karakul sheep raising its a long ion jump from the desert wilds of in central asia to the rugged ranges of tiny modoc county in california up near the oregon line but that is the trail which led to the founding of this unusual american business state senator D jack metzger r rancher ancher and sheep raiser is proprietor of the karakul ranch last lambs each year he gradually is improving the quality at birth the karakul lamb has a tightly curled coat of short black lustrous fur the pelt must be taken within n five days or it will lose 50 per cent of its value pelt wave most important fur buyers pay according to luster curl pattern and pigmentation and if tide the pelt is not taken as soon as possible the fur grows in length rapidly and loses the wave that marks its chief selling point Cali fornias karakul pioneer claims several firsts in his business he has made for mrs metzger the first coat made entirely fro from m pelts from an american herd it takes lakes a bundle of twenty pelts to make one coat metzger was the first breeder to do this his herd is also said to be the largest in the world ile he went into ti the business more as a diversion than anything else after buying about karakul a few years ag ago 0 from a bank which looked askance at the curly animals he has since painstakingly improved the quality by judicious use of purebred rams and modern selective breeding methods in addition the acre ranch with its abundant natural forage and landscape similar to the karakuls karaku ls native habitat is ideally suited to breeding these animals the only sheep that produce valuable fur an expert staff rounds out a highly specialized business organization adult karakuls karaku ls yield a lor long ig straight wool that is in demand for oriental carpets year he marketed 1600 pelts from newborn new born fur caring bearing b lambs ranging ng in value from 15 to 50 each that is the wholesale asale price however in terms of a karakul broad tail astrakhan or persian lamb coat there is quite a difference difre rence Metz gers herd descended from a few sheep spirited out olt i of their country by dr C C young years ago import laws and the aversion of herdsmen to permitting their sheep to leave served for a long time as insurmountable barriers spirited out at night ni ht finally the sheep were carried across the line on the backs of camels traveling at night president theodore roosevelt cut the red tape and allowed the valuable animals to enter the country after they had spent sixteen months in quarantine importation of selected rams from the university of germany germanas Germ anys s breed ing farms has built up Metz gers flocks to the point where they now surpass in quality of fur the native asian animals metzger has developed a special tagging system for his herd whereby hereby he hopes to mark the sheep which breed the best grade of pelts by killing only one third of the |