Rosalie hosted a shearing party at her farm in St. Louis in September. Here are the rabbits waiting to be sheared. Looks like they have a body guard!
Everyone will be meeting again in December to have the rabbits judged and shear again expecting their animals to meet the minimum wool weight of 325 grams.
Dr. Mark Burgess was the guest speaker at the IAGARB Annual General Meeting 2009 in Silverton, Oregon. Dr. Burgess is a small animal vet who specializes in exotic pets. He owns the Southwest Animal Hospital in Beaverton, Oregon. A large part of his practice is rabbits. His talk at our meeting focused on rabbit gut issues. It was very enlightening!
Dr. Burgess spoke about various gut problems in rabbits, treatment, and the issues regarding treatment. He also spoke about feed–both beneficial and things to avoid. Dr. Burgess provided a lot of information. It is rare to find a vet who knows so much about rabbits. He offers consultations to other vets as part of his practice.
At the IAGARB Annual General Meeting registration held April 4, 2009 in Silverton, Oregon, the North American Wool Production record was broken. Carrie’s fabulous doe, Harvest Moon’s Esperanza produced a total of 571 grams in a certified 90-day clip. This is an annual total of 2284 grams! The previous record was held by Bungalow Farm’s Furrari (2054 grams). In addition, Carrie brought three other German does (littermates) that each produced over 2,000 grams. Way to go Carrie!
Joyce, on the right, is holding an enormous shorn black doe. Susan smiles from the middle and Jane cradles a black German in full coat on the left.
The Fine Line Art Center sent out only one email to its members about the angora rabbits that would be shorn March 21. We were swamped with interested onlookers all day. People asked about the rabbits and were happy to know that the animals were not harmed for their wool. We handed out several membership forms.
Some people brought their children in Easter outfits to take photos with the bunnies. It was a mild, bright day. Frogs trilled their spring songs nearby. What an enjoyable day!
Rosalie tried Aesculap clippers for the first time. She did a beautiful job of cleaning off her rabbit's coat.
Rosalie smiled over a selection of her hand-dyed and handspun yarns. It is almost unfair to call some of her work "yarn" as several of the skeins has a precious jewelry quality to them!
Mary Stough prepared her next 5 pound bag of prime German Angora fiber for a sock run. Her daughter, Kate and Amy from Illinois gave her encouragement.
On March 7, 2009 Sheri hosted a shearing party at her beautiful log cabin in Maine. Shearing parties are fun gatherings for members to shear animals and certify them for registration 91 days later. Part of the testing for registration is the amount of wool an animal produces in 90 days. At a shearing party, animals are certified that they were shorn to the skin witnessed by other IAGARB members.
Members use all sorts of methods to shear. Many use Aesculap electric clippers as Sheri is demonstrating here. Some use other brands and others use scissors. Michaele here is using a round table as a stand to shear. Sheri likes a table top. Others place rabbits on their laps.
Bags and other containers are nearby to place graded and sorted wool. Prime angora is separated out from seconds and thirds. While thirds (shorter than 1 inch) are usually tossed, prime and seconds have value and can be used. Much of the prime wool harvested by IAGARB members goes into the IAGARB Yarn pool to produce the Angora Blizzard and Angora Frost yarns.
This beautiful angora coat was unmatted and
free falling. Wool, gathered by the handful, was graded and dropped into the Prime basket.
Crimp, glorious crimp!!!
Our District 7 Director, Betty Stover writes:
The Maine Agricultural Trade Show happens yearly in January. This year it was 1/13-15/09. Their were a lot of booths exhibiting farm equipment, Insurance for farmers, Alpaca Association, Boer Goats, Meat processing, etc. It is a big event held at the Civic Center. There were also mini workshops. I took classes in Quicken, Fiber Maine-ia (www.umext.maine.edu/fibermaine-ia) Betty spinning angora at the Trade ShowAs you can see in our booth we have pictures of members' sheep. The felted notebook shown in the picture has a picture of each of our sheep, our website and samples of our fiber and a knitted swatch. It might be fun to do this in each of our districts. Whoever attends the annual meetings may want to take it to share.
To All of our Angora friends, IAGARB wishes you Happy Holidays!
Big Roger hauling another 40 pounds of gorgeous Prime German Angora wool off to the spinning mill.
We are planning on a run of mill knitted socks and our first natural black angora yarn in the very near future.
