ANGORA RABBITS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3891, 5 January 1929, Page 2

ANGORA RABBITS.

REMUERA’S SHIPMENT. A PROMISING INDUSTRY. During the last few years the Angora rabbit has rapidly come into the limelight, and is now the most valuable rabbit in the world. Developed in France for its wool clip, it has, since the war, been greatly improved by the clever breeders of France and Great Britain, until to-day its wool yield exceeds in value that of an average sheep which costs ten times ■as much to maintain. Whether the Angara rabbits which arrived at Wellington by the Renmera oil Tuesday are destined to form the pueleus of a flock which will in time supplant the millions of sheep in the Dominion the years alone will tell, but that is hardly likely, as the sheep, with its lambs, provides much more than wool, rabbit and mint sauce being hardly likely to take the place of lamb and mint sauce.

But the fact remains that the breeding of Angora rabbits for commercial purposes seems to open up great possibilities for the smallholder. The annual wool clip of a good Angora rabbit is worth about £1 a year, one properly bred and fed yielding about 10 ounces of AViO'ol per annum for Avhich British spinners are to-day paying 36/- a pound. The extraordinary fineness and softness of Angora rabbit wool makes it a substance in great demand where warmth, lightness, and softness of touch are desired. A French estimate says that ■ 500 Angora rabbits can be kept on half an acre, but AA r here large-scale Avork is intended five or more acres avonld be desirable. If a complete livelihood is desired from Angora rabbit breeding and all the food is lo be homle-grown, some ten acres wbuld be needed. A man and a Avoman, Avithout any outside assistance, it is said, can manage 1000 rabbits. Whilst the industry is being developed in NeAv Zealand and (hiding its feet, it is more likely that Angora rabbit farming will be taken up as a sideline rather than as a sole means of livelihood. The art of Angora rabbit breeding and wool production is one easily mastered. There is not the slightest danger that the importation of Angora rabbits will increase the wild rabbit pest. To start Avith, the improved Angora rabbit, being worth at least £l, is too valuable an animal to be set loose. E\ T en if it Avas liberated, it is too slow and tame to run away from danger, and, being white, it Would be doomed immediately it encountered a boy, a dog, a gunman, or a h'aAvk. With its long ungainly wool to clog Avith dirt, the helpless manufactured creature is quite unfitted to burroAving. —Post.