What is the difference between fur and wool?

Answer 1

The correct answer is, there is no difference between wool, and fur, hair, whiskers, etc., just in which word we use to refer to it. It's all made of the same stuff.

"Fur" tends to get used for soft, dense hair, like rabbit fur and wolf fur, or dogs with similar coats like Alaskan Malamutes.

"Hair" tends to get used for longer growths, like horse manes or dogs with similar coats like Afghan hounds, or for short growing hair that lies close to the body, like "domestic short-haired cats" or dogs like Dalmatians.

"Wool" tends to get used to refer most commonly to the coats on woolly sheep, however other animal coats are referred to as "wool" as well, including goats, camels, llamas, and Shakespeare's three witches in his play "Macbeth" even refer to "... Wool of bat..." as one of the ingredients in their brew.

Also, one of the major ways to divide sheep breeds, is into "wool sheep" and "hair sheep".

"Hair sheep" have short, typically coarse, hair that tends to grow to only a short length, and then not any longer, unlike "wool sheep" whose fleece tends to just grow and grow and grow. I have several different breeds of both "wool sheep" and "hair sheep", myself. I only have to worry about shearing the "wool sheep" when hot weather comes. A lot of people confuse "hair sheep" with goats, because they think they look the same and that all sheep must be woolly. On the other hand, Angora goats (among other goat breeds) can have soft fluffy fur (the first one I bought was a juvenile several months old, and looked like an enormous white cotton ball), and probably look a lot sheep to some people.

See also:

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Answer 2

Fur is a raw material. Some animals grow what is called fleece, which is fur by another name, really. Fleece can be cleaned, carded, and spun into wool. Fur may not be so useful.