Helena McCoy, age 13, of Beaumont, Texas, for her question:

WHERE DO WE GET PERSIAN LAMB?     _

Beautiufl fleeces called Persian lamb, broadtail and caracul come from a fat tailed sheep called the karakul. Karakuls are lean and have narrow backs.

Persian iamb, which used to be called astrakhan, is the tightly curled pelt of lambs from three to 10 days old.

Caracul is the wavy fur of lambs not older than two months.

Most expensive of the karakul lamb fur is the broadtail. It has a very silky, rippled appearance and usually comes from lambs that were born too soon.

Most of the Persian lamb, caracul and broadtail skins are produced in central and southwestern Asia, India, southwestern Africa and southeastern Europe.

Karakuls are able to store up enough fat in their tails and back legs to live on when food is scarce. The males, called rams, have wide spreading, spiral horns but the females, called ewes, usually have none. The coarse fleece of the adult is white, yellowish, gray, brown or black. Young karakul lambs have a silky fleece which is usually black in color but it is occasionally brown, tan or gray.