separating and ripping hairs - over time how many strands actually go to the end of the dread?

was pulling sections apart today and had to break some hairs that were connecting dreads at the roots. it seems i have to do that a lot more recently even after a year. anyway, ive been pondering this for quite a while and i finally decided to ask this on the site.

When you break hairs that connect dreads at roots, ripping the starts of congos, or just separating sections so they dont congo, you're breaking hairs and such. that led me to the question in the title, how many strands are actually going to the tips, and how much of the dread is just broken hair thats dreaded onto hair thats connected to the scalp? after a year (or 20) of separating sections, each hair you break creates a loose hair thats just staying in the dread because its knotted to connected hair.

any ideas/feedback? i'd love to hear some of your responses.

updated by @jackal: 01/13/15 09:02:31PM

yes it does leave a hair that is not connected at the root but so does daily shedding. My numbers might be off, but i believe we shed around 80 to 100 hairs a day. So between the hair that breaks during separation and shed hair, there must be a whole lot of hair not attached at the root but just locked in. I know when i combed my first set out, i ended up with a big ball of hair in my lap.