Fur falling out.

Oh dear, my bathroom is covered in fur.  I've been stretching and stretching but fur is flying out all over the place.  I read somewhere that if the fur gets rewetted that it will loosen the fur so I'm guessing that is what happened.  It's all a learning process, and I will try again using a slightly different method. I'm wondering whether to try Alum as I've heard it is better than the borax method but still doesn't make it waterproof.

What I'm trying to do is find a way to do it in an enviromentally friendly way.  I think Alum and the professional chemicals you can use can contaminate water sources and can be difficult to dispose of safely, that's why I chose the borax.  Maybe next time I'll wash the pelt first, then use a paste to tan it, much as in the method described in the link at the bottom of the page for 'tanning with Alum' but with Borax.  I'll keep you posted :)

and stretch!

After washing it yesterday it had absorbed water again so was soft and supple again.  So I stretched it in all directions and I must say it was a lot easier when wet.  I imagine if I keep doing that then the finished product will be more soft and supple.

The down side being that in the process of stretching I managed to tear a few clumps of the fur out.  A lot of the fur is falling out now so I'm feeling a bit disheartened.  It may be me being too rough with it or some other reason I don't know.  I'll have to look into why that might be happening.

Meanwhile there are some baby standard rex rabbits growing up in the spare room.  They are 3 weeks old now and absolutely adorable.  There are 10 of them of various colours and I'm trying to not forget they will end up a blanket!  That is, if I can get the tanning process sorted out.  They are hopping about all over the place and running rings around the mother who is still looking good.  At the moment they are in a 47" dog cage with the door open so they can run around the room.  However they don't need the door open because they can very easily squeeze through the bars.   I shall have to refine the cage for future litters or the babies might get mixed up if I have more than one litter at a time.  Some mesh, cable tied around the bottom of the cage would perhaps do the job.

Photos coming soon.

Please do comment!

Quick update : Smelly

Well I had a look at the fur again hung in the bathroom last night and it was smelly, Now the skin was dry, the fur was dry and it struck me I hadn't washed it other than in salt yet.  So I shampooed it.  The skin was also smelly so I rubbed some body wash into it.  It smells nice now :)
I'll put up pics later...

The fur

Last night I had a go at the rabbit fur.  It was 1 am and I was supposed to be going to bed, I'd already spent half an hour in the rabbit room feeding, watering and cuddling the babies.   The skin of the pelt had dried out quite quickly so I started manipulating it , stretching gently and rubbing it together like you would washing. The rubbing didn't do much good so I used a rounded bit of wood I had handy and rubbed it back and forth on that, working my way around the pelt.  After working a part of it I could see the difference in the skin.  It went from a creamy brown colour to white.  I had to be really careful stretching it as the skin is quite thin. I did break it at one point.  I'm not too bothered by this though as I see this one as a practice piece.  I've never done this before so this a learning process

I worked it all over for a while.  Bear in mind this is 1.15 am and I'm quite tired.  I do have a problem going to bed too late!  It was softening up nicely I thought, I was working the edges the most as they were quite stiff. Each stretch or rub would make it a bit more white.  Quite satisfying work.

This morning I have a look at it and it still quite stiff, perhaps I should wet it a bit more and do some more work on it.

Any comments are welcome :)

Processing rabbit

Well I did do it!

It was really hard for me to actually kill the rabbit.  I've always considered myself an animal lover and I have taken pride in the fact that I do my best to never hurt another living creature.  However I have justified it to myself by the fact that it is a natural thing to do.  Why pay for someone else to do it if you haven't got the guts to do it yourself?  Isn't that just a little bit hypocritical?  If you eat meat, wear leather or use any other animal product then you are responsible for at least a few animals deaths.  This is just a more direct way of taking responsibility for you sustaining yourself and your family. Please don't read on if you are likely to get offended by killing, skinning and eating of a rabbit

Anyway this is what I did:

This was the rabbit, not wanted by previous owner, given to me for free, I considered breeding from her but she wasn't as good as my other rabbits.  

I stunned the rabbit but giving it a whack between the eyes and then putting a broom handle over its neck and holding the handle down with my feet I stretching the back legs up and back to dislocate the neck.  I was shaking badly at this point and my heart was beating so fast I had to take a minute to calm down but it was a quick death for the rabbit, I hope it gets easier.

It was plainly dead at this point so I hang it up by putting a hook through one of the hocks on a back leg. I then cut the head off and let it drain for a few minutes.  Immediately threw the head to my gsd. Yum she says!
I then skinned as best as I could  and took out the guts.  At this point I could see what I'd been doing it for.  The small rabbit had a surprising amount of meat on her. The butchering was just a way to get at this lovely low fat, high protein meat.  It seemed worth it then.
I fed the rest of the bunny to the dog.  This was an older bunny so might be a bit tough for the family to eat as a first rabbit, the dog doesn't mind!  Raw meat is great for dogs and I want the best for my dogs but I'm sure that is another blog.

Echo, 8 month old really enjoyed her raw meat dinner.  She ate half and my other dog ate the other half.

I  stripped off as well as I could fatty tissue and other bits from he skin then coated it in salt. Fur side down and left it for about 48 hours.

I brushed off salt and rinsed it, then put it in a pickling solution of water, borax, citric acid and salt. Left for about 48 hours

I then squeezed it out and put in a neutralizing solution of sodium bicarbonate and water. Left for about 15 minutes.

Squeezed out again and hung up to dry a bit fur side up.

Combed out the fur and spread aqueous cream on to the skin side and hung up again, skin side up.
That's where I'm up to.

I'm hoping it will end up being a lovely soft pelt that I can make into something practical.  Perhaps a blanket when I add some more pelts to it!
Next time I'll tell you what happened next.

Starting out

The truth is that rabbit are an environmentally friendly and sustainable source of meat and fur.  Some people don't like the idea because they are cute and fluffy and they are, they so are.  It doesn't get away from the fact though that pound for pound they convert food into meat better and faster than cows or any other conventional meat producing animal.  Their manure is also good for the garden raw.  By raw I mean it doesn't need to be composted first. Compared to a cow they require less space and they produce more.  There you have it

I used to be of the view point that fur was BAD. However I have started breeding rabbits as a cheap source of meat. I'm not sure at the moment how cheap it is as I've spent quite a bit so far but hopefully they are set up expenses and not ongoing!  I know where my rabbits come from, I know they are not battery farmed, I know they are looked after properly.  I can also enjoy their cuteness up until their time.  It would obviously be a waste to throw away all that lovely fur...