Monday, April 26, 2010

Archibald the Angora

For the longest time I had a rabbit named Archibald. He was a black (although the wool was grey more than black) French Angora. Quite, shy, kept to himself, but such a love. He recently passed away and I sadly was not able to harvest enough wool from him to make a complete scarf in his memory. On top of lacking wool, I lack the knowledge of spinning and knitting so I would probably have been storing it for a while longer anyway.

I grew up raising rabbits. My mother is currently the rabbit breeder in the family raising a family favorite – the English Spot. She does very well too, but they are neither a wool breed nor a meat breed. In fact, they are short haired and have a slim, trim, racy body type. I have raised several breeds, mainly for fancy (showing), including palominos, rexes, satins, Dutch, and spots. And many rabbits were raised for meat as well.

I want to get back in the swing of bunny things but try something new to me. I want to start raising angora rabbits to spin their wool. Except for dear pet Archie this is foreign to me. They are sweet, docile rabbits with a lot of grooming requirements. I don’t know if I would have the patience or the time to have more than one or 2 at a time right now, so this is more of a 3-5 year goal. Rabbits are a lot of work, and to have enough to make yarn and then knit it into product, will take time and know how, both are in short supply for me right now too. Especially with all the other things I am trying to get off the ground right now for the farm. I will have at least one rabbit soon though, it is hard to be without a fluffy companion when I have had them for so long.

My next pet rabbit will again be an angora. Not that Archie is replaceable in my heart, but that he reminded me how rewarding raising rabbits as a youth was.

And, yes, I have raised rabbits for meat too. I would like to continue raising rabbits for meat soon too. I am not quite ready to get back in to raising meat rabbits or pushing forward into breeding woollies just yet.

Gotta run, I think I hear chix pippin in the incubator,

Natalie

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