Snowflake

Today, Drew and I ventured into new territory when we acquired this German Angora doe from Shelby Rose Rabbitry in Salem, WI.  The International Association of German Angora Breeders (IAGARB) had a rabbit registration at Simons Feed and Seed in Elkhorn.  Michelle France of Shelby Rose invited us to attend so we went at 9:00 and stayed until noon.  Leslie Samson, co-author of Completely Angora, the "bible" for all things Angora, is the current president of IAGARB and she came down from Canada to do the registration and judging.  She is a really great person and I was so happy to meet her.  She talked me through the judging and had me try my hand at evaluating body conformation and wool.  I was getting the hang of it by the time we left.  Everyone there was very welcoming and helpful and I learned a lot.

I haven't posted in a long time as I have been dealing with chronic lateral epicondylitis, commonly known as "tennis elbow."  I've been avoiding using my computer at home since I have to use it so much at work.  I've been having acupuncture treatments in the last week and it has helped tremendously really quickly.

Anyway, Drew and I sheared rabbits at the end of October and have had all our French Angora bucks neutered as we don't plan to breed anymore.  As a result of that decision, we discussed acquiring a German as they are bred for commercial wool rather than as show rabbits.  The focus for Germans is the wool, which is what we are interested in.

French seemed like the way to start because they can be acquired for less money.  We paid between $40-$50 for the rabbits we purchased and then of course we bred for more.  An unregistered German goes for about $175, a registered German for about $300.  Periodically, some breeders import new breeding stock from Germany.  Their body type is different from the French Angora, their wool is quite dense, and prime wool (at least 3 inches long) can be acquired from nearly every part of their body.  I saw a rabbit today that had nearly 3 inches of wool on the bottoms of her feet!  To be registered with IAGARB, they have to produce at least 325 g of wool at a judged shearing of a 90-day coat, producing 1300 g by the end of a year. You can read more about that here.

One of the benefits of having Germans and being a member of IAGARB is that they have a wool co-op.  You can send in a minimum of 5 pounds of wool at a time and get spun yarn back.  One of the things that disappointed me when we started is that there is no fiber co-op in Wisconsin.  I don't spin and so we would be selling raw wool to hand-spinners.  Having the option to have spun yarn for sale would expand our options.  We haven't committed to any of this yet.  We are going to see how it goes with our new doe Shelby Rose Elka.  We call her Snowflake. :-)