Recent Rabbit Spinnings

[GBov]

Chocolate in Satin Angora is beautiful, but I found the Satins didn't produce enough wool for me to justify the cage space.

Now THAT is very good to know! I have been trying to decide what kind of Angora to get so that strikes them OFF the list.

I had thought to form a partnership with a spinner (we produce fiber, they spin, we split the spunnings) once we get free to move to the UK and get a start in Angoras but spinning does sound like fun so might take it up instead.

That is the best part about fiber and bunnies, its totally endless the fun one can have!

 

[Nymphadora]

I spent nearly $600 at the last fiber festival I went to, and all I brought home was wool! (I did fine a WHOLE paco-vicuña fleece for a very reasonable price though!!!)

I'd be surprised you only spent $600 if you bought that fleece!

Chocolate in Satin Angora is beautiful, but I found the Satins didn't produce enough wool for me to justify the cage space.

I did spin up a (very short) yarn using from one of my friend's Satin Angoras a while back... oh my goodness was it soft and shiny!!! Granted, it was a very very short yarn because it was only a handful that was collected as she was brushing her rabbit for a show that day. And I almost felted the darn wool in my pocket running around the show all day before I could get home to spin it. But that yarn is soft as butter... I wonder how the French Angora yarn compares (I have yet to get my hands on any). :mrgreen:

 

[PSFAngoras]

Due to unfortunate circumstances the farmer was getting out of PV's and was simply trying to sell the fleece for anything he could get. I walked by twice before asking if the $65 price tag was for an ounce, but it was for the whole fleece! I'm pretty much treating it like gold. DH pointed out that if I processed and sold the fleece I could probably buy a LOT of sheep's wool, but since I came across it due to someone else's unfortunate events I feel like that would be wrong. When I get to spinning it I'll be making gifts for my family and close friends out of it.

 

[FourRingCircus]

Beautiful yarns!! Now that I am out of rabbits for a season, I think I might start back with angoras when that time comes - merging two hobbies into one

For those interested in spinning without a lot of room or money to spare, look into drop spindles! I did a skein on a basic one I bought on Etsy and it was really fun! A RT member sent me a sample of fur to try and it was definitely a different experience than the wool I got with the starter kit. I like the idea of being able to go from rabbit to spindle with little to no effort in between...

 

[Nymphadora]

Due to unfortunate circumstances the farmer was getting out of PV's and was simply trying to sell the fleece for anything he could get. I walked by twice before asking if the $65 price tag was for an ounce, but it was for the whole fleece! I'm pretty much treating it like gold. DH pointed out that if I processed and sold the fleece I could probably buy a LOT of sheep's wool, but since I came across it due to someone else's unfortunate events I feel like that would be wrong. When I get to spinning it I'll be making gifts for my family and close friends out of it.

That's incredible... I do feel for the poor farmer though, it's always painful having to give up animals of any kind.

But that's an absolute steal for the whole fleece, I'd love to see what you make with the wool, PSFAngoras! Please keep us updated when you start spinning it.

 

[hotzcatz]

So the wool you used to make the yarn in the pictures is from a French? It's got deeper colors than what would usually show up from an English.

I just got two new rabbits, a black Satin and a black hybrid Satin/German. Everybunny else over here is an English angora, so I'm thinking of blending in some of the wool from the new rabbits with the English wool to see how the yarn looks afterwards. Do you think there will be more halo with the Satin/German fibers added in? Hopefully it will help darken up the English fibers a bit, too.

Not quite sure about breeding them to the English, but that's the only other angoras I have and the two new ones are a mother/son set. I'm planning on breeding the doe to an English buck, then taking the best doe from that litter and breeding her to the son. It'd be half siblings, but that's about the best I can do as far as keeping them from being inbred and still get some of the shiny Satin showing up. Maybe breed the Satin/German hybrid to an English doe and then cross the best buck from that back to the original Satin doe.

Eventually, I'd like to get them back to being close to Satins again, I think. How much wool does a Satin produce per year?

 

[PSFAngoras]

The fiber is from French, yes. It's all I have anymore.

I did try Satin again, Briefly, at the beginning of this year, but the one doe produced pitiful amounts of fiber (turned out she had some weird liver condition) and I couldn't keep the buck on feed. I also had another doe that had to be culled to cystic mastitis who produced 2 kits for me before that happened. I couldn't tell you how many ounces they produced off the top of my head, but in six months I only got enough wool to make a few small skeins from five rabbits.(Basically only the finicky buck was the only rabbit actually producing any usable amount of fiber.) It wouldn't have amounted to a third of what my French produce in that time. It is possible it was just the lines since they were new to me lines, but I won't go back to them between the poor production (due to random health issues) and the constant matting. (I'm pretty spoiled grooming once a week with my French)

You can get good depth of color from French if you start with that in your herd and breed towards it. It's definitely one thing I look for when buying new stock. I often notice it more in shorter coated angoras though. I'm not sure if it's true, but I have always read that they have the same amount of pigment for each hair as a normal coated rabbit, just spread over a bigger surface (read, longer hair). Most of my herd is fairly short staples at the moment, so it makes sense to me that their color would be less washed out following that train of thought. Hopefully breeding towards a longer staple can help me prove or disprove this theory.

As far as halo, I never saw much halo from my Satin, and I have no experience with English or german. The French produces a very heavy halo usually though, thanks to all the guard hair.

Honestly I think your best bet to get Satin would be to cross the mother and son. You wouldn't be able to guarantee the gene is passed on by the son to his litter, and then breeding them back to their grandmother may or may not result in a Satin kit. You should have approximately a 25% chance breeding the son to the mother. Or a half sibling back to he son should have the same odds. Hopefully having german in there will up their production a bit, by then again, I did have many health problems with mine, so it could have just been my rabbits that produced poorly.