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28 THE RURAL VOICE
Raising
Rabbits
by
Dee
Burnlees
The need to supplement farm
income with off -farm work has
become all too common. But
many rural families have come
up with alternate sources of income on the farm itself. Angoras
raised for their fur, for example, could involve the entire family...
P
eter Rabbit lost his coat in
Mr. McGregor's garden.
Perhaps that is when rabbits
started thinking about thicker coats.
Now we have the fluffiest of all, those
belonging to Angora rabbits, whose
wool is a prized luxury fibre — and
not to be confused with the coat of the
Angora goat, which gives us mohair.
The high profile of Angora rabbits
these days is due to the efforts of sev-
eral full-time breeders. Leslie Samson
of Brantford publishes a newsletter for
the Angora Producers Association, to
which 58 Ontario producers belong.
The association also has members in
British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatch-
ewan, Manitoba, the Yukon, Quebec,
and the U.S.
Candace Carter of New Britain,
past president of this association, is a
major breeder who advertises aggres-
sively. She claims that 20 Angora
rabbits can make you $2,320 a year
with as little as an hour's work a day.
She supplies German white Angora
rabbits, the largest and most heavily
wooled breed.
Those who succumb to the charm
of Angora rabbits find themselves
with several does, a buck, and little
ones. The objective might be: added
income from selling wool or meat,
pleasure in showing the animals, keep-
ing affectionate pets, an interesting
hobby, or a full-time business. The
decision might involve the whole
family in the enterprise.
Mary Butchart of Wiarton became
interested in her livestock hobby
because of her son, who was busy
raising meat rabbits to finance his
schooling. The cages were there when
Butchart, a wool spinner, discovered
Angoras. She bought a pair and
housed them with her son's animals.
Soon there were more and more
Angoras. Butchart uses cages sus-
pended over trays in an insulated shed.
No extra heat seems to be needed in
the winter. (Those who let their
rabbits burrow naturally in a pen find
sandy wool can be a problem.)
Because she teaches kindergarten
full-time, Butchart finds that about a
dozen rabbits are enough to feed daily
and to groom weekly.
The plucking occurs in stages
as the animals prepare to shed every
three and a half months. The new
wool underneath will be a centimetre
long when the full outer coat is ten
centimetres. The middle coat will be
half the length of the outer one.
Butchart pulls out the woolly fibres
as the rabbit sits quietly, enjoying the
attention. Without the weekly comb-
ing, the wool can become felted, and
of little use to the spinner. Plucked
angora has two rounded ends which
aid spinning. The rabbits can also be
shorn carefully with clippers.
Angora does can be bred safely
three times a year; the gestation period
is 28 to 35 days. More intensive
breeding could exhaust the does, so