Angora fiber processing question

[Amaggio]

Hi all, I'm new to rabbits and fiber. My mom and i enjoy crocheting and so I've started to look into farming fiber. I thought starting small, such as a few angora rabbits, might be a good way to get our feet wet. However, as i did research i realized while the investment in rabbits is far less than alpacas or goats the equipment needed to spin the fiber into yarn is rather expensive. As such im trying to see if a co-op might be a good option while we learn the basics. And what better place to ask than here? What would people recommend? Does anyone know about what you would pay for a co-op to spin the yard?

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

I haven't done much with rabbit fiber but I received a bunch of commercial sheep wool for free to play around with. You might want to start with a drop spindle instead of a spinning wheel, they are usually fairly inexpensive, I've seen them for $15-30 online. I haven't found carding combs in my price range yet so I bought some devices that are actually for cutting angel food cake. They were less than $10 each. They are wire/metal and have wicked looking tines, but they seem to work when I comb the wool.

I watched a YouTube video of a lady who spun the wool off her angora without prepping or carding, so I don't think it's required to have a fancy or expensive setup. Hopefully someone else who's more familiar with rabbit wool will chime in soon. I'd love to see your rabbits and your yarn so far.

 

[Amaggio]

I haven't purchased a rabbit yet but I'm hoping to soon or early next year. Thank you for the advice, i will take a look at those drop spindles.

 

[Hens and Roos]

We started learning to spin fiber about 3 years ago from our French Angora rabbits using a drop spindle. We went to a fiber shop local to our area to get the spindle and a small set of combs to cut the angora fiber with merino wool fiber, unfortunately life got in the way and we haven't continued working with it.