[laurelrus]

We're thinking of getting some Angora goats shortly and while I was looking at them online, Angora rabbits came up!
If anyone has any experience with them and can tell me whether they are a realistic idea - we have had pet bunnies before, and I really like the idea of rabbits that might actually pay their way with their fibre, but we don't want to raise rabbits for meat.
I'd be very interested to know whether this is yet another silly idea (I have a long list) of those) or whether it's possible to keep them as pets and then sell the fibre either unspun or possibly learn how to spin myself. Not looking to give up the day job, but not taking on any more passengers at the moment!
Thanks very much in advance.

[cloddopper]

We had two members  who ran angora when I was a member of the British Commercial Rabbit Association  one had about 24  does . They sometimes sold stock but in the main tired to make a go at harvesting the wool. cleaning & dying it , spinning it and hand knitting it .    Whilst they were one of the nicest people I've ever known I felt for several years that they were kidding themselves as to the viability of it all and as far as I could see there was a lot of hard work for that little return .
They were using shears to get the wool as they didn't like the idea of the traditional way of " plucking " the live rabbit for it  which meant that the fibre was much shorter than plucked wool.
 The Chinese pluck their  angora and send their wool over here ready to use .
People with knitting machines use to churn out  individually designed / bespoke made clothing , this meant that the person could not easily sell her garments  but I do believe they managed to get a small stock of ladies jumpers made over time  and sold the lot to someplace such as Harrods which was evidently a reasonable profitable exercise but not one they wanted to repeat.
 In the end i think a few common sizes of crew neck or round  neck ladies jumpers became their forte and they found a couple of local quality ladies outfitters who stocked them on SOR  ( Sale Or Return )

 SOR does men it's you who has to bear the cost of shop damage and theft etc & it may well be that they will not be insured whilst in the shops under SOR terms & difficult to insure in your own right fir u=such instances as fire , flood damage.

I have also seen Angora heavy knit jumpers sold as individual items in some of the posher hotel lobby way shops at prices that made my eyes water at the price being asked for. but most likely made the knitters eyes water from crying at the low return .

 Most of the does had very heavy scurf ( apparently quite common )