Why no market?

This has been bothering me for quite some time. Why is there no real market for rabbit pelts? The world wide demand for fur is high especially short fur but yet rabbit pelts are being consistently thrown in the trash. Muskrat pelts are superior to rabbit pelts but are selling for 12+ dollars some of the muskrat pelts I would consider to be equal to rabbit pelts are still bringing 5+ dollars each. I think there are a couple reasons why there is no market and I would like to share them with you guys in hopes that possibly we could start working towards a solution.

1. No consistent supply of good pelts. If you are going to make coats and use rabbit as trim you would probably want to buy 100+ matching rabbit pelts in one lot I have not heard of anyone producing large amounts of high quality pelts.

2. Price to produce. It could potentially be to expensive to produce good quality pelts due to the extended time it takes to grow out rabbits while their leather thickens enough to be used in clothing. Does anyone have a cost breakdown on how much it cost to grow a Silver Fox from 1 day to 6 months? Or how long it takes for the leather to be prime?

3. Foreign supply. Is the foreign market already flooded with rabbit pelts? It probably is but the demand for fur is very strong with ranch mink leading the way which is pushing up Muskrats to be used on mink items as trim and rabbits could possibly fill this same role.

I try not to bring up problems without potential solutions so here are some things I think we could work on. Contact NAFA they a large auction house and the the largest supplier of fur in North America in 2 mins they could make or break the whole concept. Currently NAFA has their biggest auction of the year going on so it would probably be best to contact them late Feb or early March. Teach rabbit growers how to stretch and and dry pelts. I honestly dont know how a buyer would prefer rabbit pelts but I would imagine you could stretch and dry them on small raccoon stretchers possibly modified raccoon stretchers. If stretched and dried they would be shippable and in a familiar form to buyers. I am not a member of ARBA (will be soon) but would ARBA possibly be interested in helping to find a market for something like this?

Does anyone else have any ideas or solutions? Has this already been tried and I am simply beating a dead horse? Let me know your thoughts.

Buyers will want them the same way they buy any other furs, stretched and dried. I worked at a mink farm in the drying room one year and this is how they stretched the pelts. The pelt is taken off the head as well as the nose is used to hook the pelt onto the stretching board (looks like an ironing board top). The pelt is slipped over the board and stretched as much as possible then stapled to the bottom of the board. The stretching boards are then placed in racks with air flow inside the pelt to speed drying. The pelts are dry enough in 16-24 hours to be removed from the boards and trimmed. They are then sorted for colour and quality.
I know that it was once part of ARBAs mandate but I don't know that meat and fur are still of interest to the organization as a whole.
I don't think it's a dead horse necessarily but you will have an uphill battle getting it going.

My question about fur put up really is would buyers prefer fur in or out? I am assuming in because leather will vary greatly and be the main contributor to price. Also how wide should stretchers be at the base? I am assuming most people would want to use wire stretchers for ease of use and the fact they would be inexpensive. Old ranch mink boards may be about the perfect size for putting up rabbit pelts though. Really these are the types of questions NAFA would need to answer if they were even interested in Rabbit fur. Maybe someone with better writing skills could put together a email to NAFA asking these types of questions?

Fur out is how the mink farm did it and in order to check quality the buyer has to be able to see what they're buying. They don't really care too much about the raw hide, I've seen some pretty gross hides stretched and dried. Anything too thin to be stretched won't make onto a stretcher.
The wire stretchers don't have any way to keep the pelt in place on the botttom. A stretcher board is about 8" across the bottom and about 4' long, sometimes shorter.
Also, the hides come into the drying room fleshed.

I'm thinking your skills are just fine, I have to work to keep up with you.

I kind of see if a bit differently I think. I believe most of the people in this backwards world I live in want to buy faux fir instead of the real thing. Cheaper and you don't "harm innocent little bunnies" at the same time. In their mind, faux is just as good if not better than the real thing anyway. Just my 2 cents.

I was told there was a large amount of rabbit fur coming in from China. They seem to be able to produce them and ship them here cheaper than we can produce them.

Yes, a lot of imported rabbit fur from China.

But the French seem to have developed a niche market for a specialized dual purpose rex rabbit. 60% of the profits come from the fur and 40% from the meat. You'll have to excuse the clumsy Google translation.
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl ... 26hs%3DbUg

The fur is called orylag:
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl ... n%26sa%3DG

http://www.orylag.com/version_anglaise/ ... e_idee.php

Do a search for orylag on eBay and you'll see some big price tags!

mystang89":23sa8qho said:

I kind of see if a bit differently I think. I believe most of the people in this backwards world I live in want to buy faux fir instead of the real thing. Cheaper and you don't "harm innocent little bunnies" at the same time. In their mind, faux is just as good if not better than the real thing anyway. Just my 2 cents.

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Faux fur has seen its peak. Asia is using real fur at incredible rates as/if wealth continues to build in Asian countries I think we can continue to see a good real fur market. The rabbit pelts we see coming from Asia are arts and crafts quality not dress quality and I believe the reason they come from Asia is because tanning is cheaper there. If someone can explain how to put up pictures I will show you guys some muskrats I have stretched and dried and you can see how wire stretchers are being used to process fur.

Here is why
China (major meat market BTW)
has lax environmental laws, it's SO bad in the US, that a number of local taxidermy places OVERNIGHT Alaskan trophy skins to CHINA to be tanned (remember the taxidermist builds a 'mount' (usually plastic or fiberglass form) over which the 'cape' (skin or fur) is hung)

Well, the US tanneries are few and far between, tanning uses a number of 'hazardous' material, there's OSHA, EPA... bunches of crap
SO, it's cheaper to FEDEX it to China, have it tanned, then FEDEX'd back than 1.) process it themselves, 2.) send it to a US tannery

So, we see it's cheaper to tan in China, well china eats lots of rabbits, it has MASSIVE industrial tanneries, and EXPORTS 'hobby' hides
how can you compete with $5 hides, when you can't even TAN the hide for that?


Now that said, there's a local guy who posted on the club's facebook page (actually I think I referred him from a gun forum) offering between 5-10 a green hide.

Thanks for that info MaggieJ. It seems the French have proven the concept using "orylag" aka Rex rabbits. As I already stated Muskrats are selling for 12+ dollars each for high quality pelts, Rabbits should have as much or more usable fur that could also be bred for almost any color wanted. I see no reason why rabbit pelts couldnt be 10+ dollars each and still have meat as a by product. I think the real thing holding back a possible pelt market is lack of consistent supply. If you could run a bunch of high quality rabbit pelts right after the ranch mink at NAFA you could be looking at some serious coin. The pelts would still get tanned in China for dirt cheap just like almost all fur currently is.

To post a pic you have to first put it on a site like photobucket.com or something like that then take the URL and put it in here. That's how I do it anyway.

DonnerSurvivor":vd6zrxcm said:

Thanks for that info MaggieJ. It seems the French have proven the concept using "orylag" aka Rex rabbits. As I already stated Muskrats are selling for 12+ dollars each for high quality pelts, Rabbits should have as much or more usable fur that could also be bred for almost any color wanted. I see no reason why rabbit pelts couldnt be 10+ dollars each and still have meat as a by product. I think the real thing holding back a possible pelt market is lack of consistent supply. If you could run a bunch of high quality rabbit pelts right after the ranch mink at NAFA you could be looking at some serious coin. The pelts would still get tanned in China for dirt cheap just like almost all fur currently is.

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I do think, like most things in America, the market is taken over by cheaper labor. This whole country is basically outsourced. Laws upon laws, AR, zoning, the disappearance of farm land, make it hard for someone to have a rabbit farm and keep and feed the amount of rabbits it would take to break even. I have 53 rabbits and kits, I spend $100 in food every month. Rabbits are eating maybe a lb a week. I really can't afford to keep all of those guys to the point of 6 mos to have the best pelts.

Not to get anyone to excited but a lot of ranch mink just sold for 3600 dollars (20 mink pelts in the lot price is per pelt in the lot) so 72,000 dollars for 20 ranch mink. Tell me again how there is no market for real fur This is the best lot on the auction and is not typical of the price of mink but it does show how much of a demand there is for real fur! Lots are selling typically for between 100-200 dollars per pelt and there are 4.15 million pelts on this auction.

Real fur yes, rabbit not so much. And there are the stories of rabbit fur coats shedding a lot, brought on by the influx of cheap furs from China. I don't think rabbit fur is considered a trusted source of fur anymore.

Sky, I think you might have spotted the open door for American rabbit raisers to enter the pelt market ... raising QUALITY pelts in America ... the only way for this to be successful would be to deliver consistently superior quality rabbit furs in lot sizes of consistent colors ... so if your program produces a beautiful amber color in a very dense pelt and you can have 40-100 pelts ready to go each auction, then within just a couple of years, a breeder can be commanding a very good price per pelt. Once known for quality and consistency, branching out to additional colors would not lower your profits on the first colors.

As DS said, it is consistency of quality and color that commands the higher prices.

Something to think about

After much searching around on the internet ive heard rumors of a large 300 doe pelting operation in Utah and found some info from Chinese buyers who say North America produces good pelts in limited quantities. The Chinese buyer claims to be paying 2-20 USD per pelt in China. I would imagine 2 dollars are damaged or young rabbits and 20 are the largest and the best so just call the average 11 dollars for pelts bought directly from Chinese farmers. A superior pelt on the largest auction in the world in a lot of 20 other color matched pelts should be a easy 20 dollars by my thinking. The U.S dominates in the world AG industry I dont really see a reason why we couldnt dominate the rabbit fur trade as well. The real competition should come from south america were large farms are competing with the U.S but who knows when another revolution will sweep through South America...then again people in the U.S are getting restless to.

AnnClaire":2pbhz882 said:

Sky, I think you might have spotted the open door for American rabbit raisers to enter the pelt market ... raising QUALITY pelts in America ... the only way for this to be successful would be to deliver consistently superior quality rabbit furs in lot sizes of consistent colors ... so if your program produces a beautiful amber color in a very dense pelt and you can have 40-100 pelts ready to go each auction, then within just a couple of years, a breeder can be commanding a very good price per pelt. Once known for quality and consistency, branching out to additional colors would not lower your profits on the first colors.

As DS said, it is consistency of quality and color that commands the higher prices.

Something to think about

Click to expand...

Oh the thought has crossed my mind so many times, but unfortunately I have no place to raise enough rabbits for that . If only I could afford a larger operation, and had the time to work it

I was thinking more along the lines of a rabbit co-op where a group gets together to coordinate butchering for a specific breed such as Black Silver Fox ... putting together a lot of 100 for the auction. It should be pretty easy to match color/length of fur/size of pelt in a breed such as that.

Once some experience is gained at coordinating, other colors/breeds can be added in, allowing each individual breeder to stay as small as they want.

I know, if I breed during the winter months, by next fall, my growouts will range from prime adult to prime junior pelt, with more juniors coming on through the winter.

The quantity from any one breeder can be as little as 10 to as much as 50 ... an individual to gather the pelts for sending on to the auction, so 2 postage/shipping fees to be budgeted into the costs.

As stated, fleshed and salted hides, no tanning needed ... it would certainly be an interesting trial

Interesting. Maybe I should pitch that idea tot he folks on the SF facebook page. Most are butchering for meat and have little interest in the pelt. In my case, I am taking the pelts with not so much interest in the meat.

AnnClair, they don't need to be salted just dried and stretched