Spinning Angora Rabbit Fur

An interesting aspect of fiber growing came up on a rabbit list recently.
I decided to calculate my actual cost per ounce.

My pure Germans ate 1 cup per day on average, some more. My English eat 1/2 cup per day (I used to overfeed them, but Betty Chu, whom I purchased them from, advised me not to.) My crosses eat something inbetween, let's say it is 3/4 cup, but I'm not so sure of it.

Being generous, let's say the Germans give 12 ounces every 3 mo. (most don't meet this bar, 11.5 oz or 325 grams is the registration bar, and most don't meet that). Now, they won't give that unless then are on very high quality feed. Around here, King feed costs about $18.99/50 lbs. If I fed the Germans Manna Pro, they would not give that much fiber. A german will eat around 2.7 bags of it over a years time, so that is around $51. That means the fiber costs me about $1.06 per ounce

My English give 8 oz every 4 mo, so that is 24 ounces a year. (Mine probably outperform most, mine are from Betty.- Actually one doe gives over 9 oz in less than 4 mo, but the other one doesn't.) They only eat about 1/2 cup, or about 1.35 bags per year. But they produce that amount on less expensive feed, MannaPro, which is only $13.99 per bag around here. So the total cost is around $19.00 per year. That is around 78¢ per ounce! Even if they were not wonderful producers and only gave 5 oz every 4 mo (easily attainable), they'd still be in the same ballpark as Germans per ounce, just over a dollar per ounce.

My crosses also eat the less expensive feed, so I can figure the cost, but estimating production is much harder. I have a couple who give pure German type of numbers and a few that give English type of numbers. The larger ones eat more, but aren't necessarily the best producers. So I won't venture a guess, but since they eat less expensively, I'm guessing it is between the 2 above.

Both animals get the same treats, so I'm not counting that, but I suspect the ratios would be very similar.

I was delighted to figure out that my favored fiber actually costs less to produce too! Of course, if the goal is to produce the maximum amount of fiber in the smallest space, Germans are the breed to go with. However, since the fiber is superior, it is good to know that English fiber doesn't cost any more (in fact not as much) as German fiber does.

Cheers,
Donna