Cutting the rabbit's skin when trimming fur

How do I keep this from happening? I already use bulb-tipped scissors, kept nice and sharp, and a seam ripper for the mats. Depending on how much bunny fur I'll be cutting, I sometimes enlist my mother to hold the bunny.

I have 11 Giants and 1 English, so it makes sense that I'd cut one of them eventually, since there's so much grooming to be done, but 3 times in my year and a half of owning rabbits seems like it's too much. Admittedly, the first two times were with scissors on mats, which probably contributed to it. One on the leg and one on the foot. I had a long, over six month break without cutting them when I started using seam rippers for the mats. But I just got a new, sharper seam ripper and cut the skin on one of my rabbits doing the matty area on the back of her neck. If you own angoras, you know that area.

I keep blu-kote around for when I clip them (that stuff is a miracle substance) but I'd like to reduce how often I need it. After all, the mats still need to come out, and I also don't want to irritate their skin by pulling it out before the fur is releasing, so sometimes I need to cut the fur.

Pick up a metal comb and try to get it in between the skin and the mats before cutting. A soft slicker brush will work better and more safely than a seam ripper also.

A slicker brush doesn't work for mats, though, which is the area where I mess up. And the second time I my rabbit's skin, I was using a metal comb under the mats. It didn't stop anything.

Use a slicker without the plastic balls on the end of the teeth and make sure it's wire rather than plastic. The ones for dogs are far more useful than the ones marketed for rabbits, those are useless. Used correctly, a slicker is the easiest way to demat. I do it every day.
Use a pat and pull technique for dematting with a slicker and you may want to rethink your grooming schedule.
Rather than the seam ripper use your metal comb for picking apart mats also.
I would go across the teeth of the comb rather than in between if you need to cut mats too.

I will try to use the slicker more. I pretty much stopped using it in favor of a wide toothed metal comb since the Angoras are so dense the slicker seems to pull to much wool out - my English is a molter not a clipping/ continuous growth Wooler and the giants by nature are pluckable /molting type. I have had issues in the past where brushing and combing resulted in too much wool lost and a bunny with too much guard hair left on to do well on the show table.

I do need to work on my grooming schedule, though. Right now my babies are molting out there junior coat and it is terrible. Junior coats are so wooly and fine that they mat in seconds. I have half of them clipped down now and the other half will get done this weekend. That will make my back to school schedule a bit easier, too. I tried to extend the junior coats a bit past their "life expectancy" so they could make my 4h club show and then to sell the ones I wasn't keeping. With the junior coat it sometimes seems to go from fine to a mess in the span of a day - worse for my couple of bratty babies that think playing in water crocks or burrowing in the hay feeder is fun! <br /><br /> __________ Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:52 am __________ <br /><br /> I think the reason why their skin got ut even using the comb was because the teeth of the comb were too wide and the skin actually pulled up through the comb a little-but thinner combs don't work, since the fur is so dense.

They wiggling the thinner comb under the matt to guard the skin and then using a dull steak knife or seam ripper to cut it.

A power blower can help get rid of a lot of fur so you dont need to clean out your comb or brush as often.

When grooming make sure you get down to the skin.

My process for grooming Persian cats is once a month do a thorough grooming

I start with a pin brush to get most of the loose fur out.

Then do line work with a slicker to get the left overs

and finally a wide tooth comb and finer tooth comb to be sure all dead hair is gone.

Then the cat just needs weekly or bi weekly brushing a with the wide tooth comb to maintain.

And Persian is very similar to angora in texture for sure. The comb you need isn't sold through pet stores. Go talk to your local grooming shops and ask where they got theirs, you may even get lucky and be able to buy one there. I would recommend a 'Greyhound' type comb with medium/fine teeth. Greyhound is a brand/type.

3mina":3ppql2sr said:

I would recommend a 'Greyhound' type comb with medium/fine teeth.

Click to expand...

Those are the absolute best combs you will ever find!

http://www.greyhoundcomb.com/about.html

Which size of the greyhound combs would you recommend? Would the extra-fine "Bambi" or "Candy" be best?

'candy' is the coloured version of whichever comb. My go to comb is about 8" long and the tines are an inch long. I like having a medium courseness on one side and fine on the other. I'd start with that and go up or down in size as you get comfortable with it. I also use a 10" comb lots as well BUT those take getting used to and are for specific breed trims so I doubt you'll want one of those.

I often use one or two teeth on my comb to pick out mats and the Greyhound is the only one I've found that the teeth don't bend when I abuse it and I'm hard on my tools.