Category Archives: Satin Angora

On our New Pricing…

Can I just tell you my least favorite part of raising rabbits? Selling rabbits.

 

I know this may sound silly, but selling rabbits ranks right around cleaning out the waste pile for me in terms of favorite activities. Partially because there is no right or wrong rule with setting prices, and there is a lot of back and forth variety in what breeders do in specific areas. Add in flaky buyers who fall through at the last minute and, in general, it’s a challenge!

 

We’ve just upped our prices a tad – it’s the first time in three years we’ve done so. It’s always hard to consider raising prices, and I want you to know we are doing so intentionally, not because we suddenly want more bang for our sales.

 

Since we breed rare breeds almost entirely, we keep availability in mind. Yes, it’s extremely difficult to find some of these breeds – and truthfully we have paid a top dollar for most all of our foundation animals. However, we would love these rare breeds to gain in popularity, which means that if you price them too high you run some serious, great breeders out of the game with a high price.

 

We’ve also become pretty choosy with our keeper/sellers and in the past two years we’ve culled hard, which has improved the quality of our herd overall. When I think back to the rabbits we had several years ago, I’m proud of the progress we’ve made with the breeds, and there is a dedication to care and analytical breeding that has been proven in the test of time. Are we perfect, not at all! But do we have better judgement than we did when we were starting out? Absolutely. Are we producing higher quality animals? Yes, we are. People who buy a Mad Hatter Rabbit now receive the benefit of the education we’ve gained over the years – and there’s value to that.

 

I believe you’ll still find us on the “reasonable” spectrum of the prices for our breeds, as our goal is still to provide a quality rabbit at a decent price to encourage other folks to raise these heritage and rare breeds. We thank you for your patience and look forward to working with you!

So, Um… We have fuzzy bunnies now.

IMG_6678Just about 12 months ago we attended a show and happened to set up camp next to a very kind angora breeder who gently and patiently put up with our kid’s questions about angoras and requests to touch and love on angoras. Of course, because angoras are beautiful, they begged to take an angora home. We firmly, repeatedly said, “No.”

I have a grudge against rabbits that can’t clean their own poop up well. We raise meat rabbits. We don’t like high maintenance. NO ANGORA BUNNIES.

Fast forward several months and I learn that one of my favorite breeders ever raises Satin Angoras. We’re negotiating for a trade in bloodlines for some other breeds and she offers to set the kids up with Satin Angoras, “They’re meat bunnies wearing coats. You can do this!” she says. I hem and haw because the kids haven’t stopped bugging me about the fuzzy animals.

We work with the kids to set some goals for responsibility to show us that they’re ready to take on a high maintenance breed. Remarkably, the kids meet their goals. The trade of breeds takes place, our friend tells me she’s doing her best to give the kids a great start, and don’t worry, they’re meat animals – if they’re awful they can go to freezer camp.

In May we came home from West Coast Classic with a trio of Satin Angoras. I don’t want to admit it but I kind of like them – the personality is amazing on these animals. We go on a field trip to a fiber mill and also a fiber festival, realizing we can utilize the wool on these animals to do some cool crafts and learn a new skill.

IMG_0902We trade for more fuzzy bunnies through ARBA nationals.

We breed the fuzzy bunnies. The babies are adorable. We show a fuzzy bunny at a show and realize our original breeder friend took very good care of us in starter stock.

And now, it appears we are breeders of fuzzy bunnies. Also known as Satin Angoras. Lord help us.IMG_0924

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