Last of the breed

A friend once said I have a hair ranch. I suppose it’s true. The first animals on our farm were angora goats. Maureen is a spinner and angora goats have wool that’s very similar to a sheep. The angora rabbits were next.

This is Harvey, our angora rabbit. Maureen has a habit of naming our animals after Beatrix Potter characters, but by the time we got to Harvey the character names had run out. Angora rabbits are a domestic rabbit bred for their long, soft hair. They are thought to have originally come out of Turkey and are prized for the quality and softness of their wool.

An interesting point: Angora rabbits are the only animals, I’ve ever heard of, that have entered a symbiotic relationship with humans (that is besides the bacteria in our bodies). Angoras have been bred for two traits: wool quality and a tendency to loose their full coat of wool every eight weeks or so. It just falls out and some angoras can even be plucked. This second trait is a deadly problem for the rabbits – they tend to lick their fur, get wool block and die. So we gain from angora’s wool, and they depend upon us to relieve them of it. Angoras can no longer live on their own or in the wild.

A true story: Maureen was once spinning at a fair and had one of our angoras with her. A woman came up and ask; “What is that?” Maureen told her it was an angora rabbit. The lady then ask; “What kind of cat did you breed your rabbits with to get it like that!”

We once had six angoras, but rabbits aren’t made of very good stuff and they start getting sick after three or four years – Maureen couldn’t stand the pain of their short life-spans or the vet bills, so Harvey is our last angora.