Goats arrive at farm to provide mohair for luxury beds
A HERD of goats have been recruited to a North Yorkshire farm to provide luxury material for mattresses.
Leeds-based bedmakers Harrison Spinks has added four Angora goats to its 300-acre farm at Bolton Percy near York with a view to using their fleeces to complement its in-house production of mohair – a naturally soft wool which is used in some of the firm’s most luxurious mattresses.
The introduction of the goats, which have been sourced from a farm in Beverley, is part of Harrison Spinks’ recent £9m investment to grow the business.
Simon Spinks, the company’s managing director, said: “One of the key aims of our five-year strategy is to increase the amount of natural materials we grow. The introduction of the Angora goats will allow us to produce some of the mohair we use in our mattresses ourselves on our own farm, as well as continuing to source additional material from other local farms in order to meet demand.”
The fleece from the Angora goat is both durable and resilient, and will be used as a filling to enhance such qualities in Harrison Spinks’ mattresses, Mr Spinks said.
Much like fleece from sheep, mohair is known to help regulate body temperature, but is softer and has a more luxurious feel.
Mr Spinks added: “Our team has been working hard to develop a bed that contains no foam, chemicals or glue, and the new Angora goats will take us a step closer to revolutionising the bed industry with the ultimate natural bed.”
The firm is the only bed manufacturer in the world to own its own farm and grow natural fillings for its mattress collections.
The Angora goats join an existing flock of more than 600 Texel, Suffolk, Zwartble and Wensleydale sheep and alpacas, all of which are reared for their wool.
A flock of 22 pedigree Wensleydale Longwool ewes, and a oneyear-old tup, was added to the farm in October.
Considered to be a rare breed, having first originated in Yorkshire in the early 19th century, the flock was bought from a breeder in Suffolk and the lustrous wool from the sheep’s fleeces is also used as mattress filling.
For a kingsize bed, Harrison Spinks makes use of about 1,000 grams of wool in each layer, and each individual bed can have several layers.