Angora rabbits have joined the farm family

We have added rabbits to the farm this spring! After getting my new spinning wheel in December, I started learning about fiber rabbits. I had raised rabbits for 4-H when I was a teenager, but my experience was with meat breeds - Californians and New Zealand Blacks.

So I've been reading, and reading, and reading about Angora rabbits, then started talking with breeders. It was the same sort of process I went through when we decided to add llamas to the farm. I settled on French Angora rabbits since they have guard hairs in their coat and are fairly easy to keep groomed. I also met several rabbit breeders who had raised other types of Angoras and then landed on French Angoras for the long term.

After selecting four rabbits, we made a trip to Michigan in early March to attend Rabbit School at Michigan State University Rabbit Breeders' Convention and Show. That was a blast! And a great place to soak in a bunch of information about rabbits. (I still can't believe I talked Scott into attending Rabbit School with me!) 

We met several really friendly rabbit show folks, and had opportunity to ask lots of questions. After Rabbit School (I just love that phrase!), we met with the owner of Briar Lane Rabbitry and picked up two full sibling junior does that we had purchased.

Then a couple hours later, we stopped in northern Indiana and picked up the other two from Black Foot Rabbitry -- a French Angora lilac tort doe and a French Angora black buck. They have all settled right in to our family. If you'd like to see our new website just for the rabbits, it is Heartsong Rabbitry. I have registered the farm with ARBA (American Rabbit Breeders Association) as Heartsong Rabbitry. I have also taken the rabbits to our first show - Golden Prairie Rabbit Breeders Show in April. Frosty and Delight both won their classes. it was a bunch of fun to meet all the other rabbit people! And so different from showing llamas or ponies! (You can see Delight and Frosty in the photo below as they wait for their big moment on the show table!)

I have just harvested the junior coats from the rabbits (you can pluck or trim an Angora about every 4 months), and I'm eager to try blending it with some of our llama fiber to use in a handspun project. I've joined the Rookies (rookie spinners) team and the Fiber Rabbit Fanciers team for the Tour de Fleece in Ravelry. The spinning teams in Ravelry spin fiber on the same days as the bike competitors are racing in the Tour de France. It is supposed to be a way to keep you motivated on your spinning project, and provide you with a group of like-minded fiber artists to encourage you along the way. I'm excited to participate, and hope it helps me get more mileage with hand spinning fiber! The photo below shows Frosty after she had been trimmed part way.

If you are also participating in Tour de Fleece and are looking for llama rovings to spin, I have rovings from FFF Mas Chiri and LUA Annabell Status available in my Etsy store. I also have batts of I Believe "Betty" available. I get the sense we need more folks who are spinning llama fiber or llama blends participating in Tour de Fleece to help promote the awesomeness of llama fiber!

Added Note:  Below is a photo of the Angora fiber on the bobbin on my spinning wheel. This is fiber that I simply pulled from the brush as I was grooming the rabbits, so you see the four different colors of our four French Angora rabbits. I just spun it from the cloud. It was a fun experiment.