Maggie’s First Harvesting

Miss Maggie Moo is almost 4 months old today and I noticed that she’s been grooming an awful lot more than usual. So, I decided to harvest her wool.

She is an English Angora so you’re supposed to be able to just pluck out their loose wool as they “blow coat” every 3-4 months. I tried that, and it didn’t really do much. I tried combing her but only little wisps came out and she was still grooming out large chunks herself. This bothers me because rabbits are so prone to wool block. So, I got out my little blunt tipped kid scissors and decided to shear her.

She was not stressed or harmed in any way. She had a snuggly seat on my lap the whole time. I will say that I was horribly nervous throughout the shearing. Rabbits have paper thin skin and I was so worried I would cut her somehow! But I held the scissors in such a way that cutting her would have been virtually impossible.

First I combed out all the bits of hay and trimmed out mats (few and far between because of daily grooming)
Then I made sure she had some greens to munch as I set about the task of trimming her up. I decided to split the harvest into two days, today and tomorrow, so that she doesn’t get too stressed out. I trimmed along her back and near her head today and tomorrow I will do her sides/belly. I may actually end up splitting it across 3 days and save belly for when my husband can help hold her and keep her calm.

In any case, it went pretty well. I did get pottied on, but I suppose I can’t ask that much of a rabbit, it’s a difficult thing to sit still and hold your bladder for that long. It wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought.