What does plucking mean when you keep pet or show angora rabbits.<\/p>\n
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I have recently been contacted by some very irate people accusing me of cruelty to my rabbits.\u00a0 I suddenly realised today that it is a matter of semantics.\u00a0 What do you understand by the word \u201cplucking\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0 Does it raise painfilled memories of doing your eyebrows?\u00a0 Are you reminded of chickens?\u00a0 I was contacted by someone with a few pet angora, and this is the explanation I gave them.\u00a0 It may clear up a few misconceptions along the way.<\/p>\n
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I’m hoping you can help me please. I have been given angora rabbits that were not looked after. I had to have them shaved when i got them because their fur was so badly matted. The bunnies fur has now grown and I’m worried they are getting too hot. I’ve been told not to shave them, they must be plucked. Quite honestly this sounds terrible. Could you please advise me what to do. I quite understand, it sounds horribly like disposing of a chicken!!<\/p>\n I think a better term would be stripping, which is what is done to horses and dogs to remove loose moulting hair, and that is what you will do. If you look at the rabbits on my website, all of them had been stripped during the month prior to the photos being taken. \u00a0The new coat is normally a minimum of 2cm long before the moult sets in and you remove the old coat.<\/p>\n The first thing to check for is if the wool is starting to leave a \u201ctail\u201d dragging behind the rabbit.\u00a0 At this point the rabbit has loosened its moulting wool, and has started to grow in a second coat.\u00a0 Take a small pinch of the tips of the hairs, and give it a gentle tug.\u00a0 If the wool comes out neatly and easily, and there is shorter hair left behind, then the coat is what they call \u201cripe\u201d or \u201cslipping\u201d.\u00a0 The rabbit will enjoy this, as the wool seems to itch horribly as it begins to slip, and will comfortably lie on a table, your lap, or chair, while you remove the loose hair from its coat.<\/p>\n If however it takes a yank to remove, or if the rabbit shows any discomfort, then stop immediately and give it another week before you try again.\u00a0 By discomfort, I mean any form of pain, remember that it is natural for the rabbit to resist any form of restraint, even just a hand held in front of its face.\u00a0 As they become more used to you, it bothers them less, and once they realise they are being helped, they are fine with the stripping.<\/p>\n Also remember that the wool insulated both against heat and cold,\u00a0 I have sometimes seen a fully coated rabbit showing less heat stress than a stripped one,\u00a0 Rather leave the wool to mature, than force an issue.<\/p>\n Whoever advised you against cutting is quite right, cutting tends to cause the wool to matt and knot, and this is very uncomfortable for the rabbit.\u00a0 They often form abscesses and sores under the matts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What does plucking mean when you keep pet or show angora rabbits. I have recently been contacted by some very irate people accusing me of cruelty to my rabbits.\u00a0 I suddenly realised today that it is a matter of… (Read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-about-angora-rabbits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angorarabbits.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThank you so much<\/strong><\/p>\n