How is High-Quality Angora Rabbit Wool Produced? Key Technical Points Explained
Rabbit hair is divided into three types: fine hair, coarse hair, and two-type hair. Fine hair, also known as rabbit down, has an average fineness of 12-14 microns and is the shortest of the three types. It has distinctly irregular crimps. Because fine hair has good physical and chemical properties, it has high textile value in the wool textile industry,
Generally speaking, its price is also higher than the other two types. Therefore, mastering rabbit down production techniques to produce more fine hair is an effective means of improving the production efficiency of Angora rabbits.
1. Understand the quality requirements for rabbit down. Rabbit down should be pure white, fully loose, free of impurities, and not matted. Rabbit down with an average fineness exceeding 14 microns or below 12 microns is downgraded. The longer the rabbit down, the better; grade-one rabbit down averages 3.35 cm. The coarse hair content in rabbit down should be controlled within 1%.
2. Nutritional level. Rabbit hair contains five main elements: about 50% carbon, 6-8% hydrogen, about 20% oxygen, 17-19% nitrogen, and 3-5% sulfur. Other elements directly related to rabbit hair formation include: copper, magnesium, and so on.
3. Management principles. In addition to general daily management, amino acids should be appropriately added, and the feed should be diversified and reasonably balanced. Clean up manure regularly and raise the rabbits in separate cages. Regularly eliminate parasites in the digestive tract and on the body surface.
4. Rabbit down production. Because coarse hair grows faster than down hair (fine hair), it generally protrudes above the surface of the down. During wool production, carefully pull out all the coarse hair by hand, then use a shearing method to collect the remaining rabbit down. The shearing order is from the back of the neck to the back of the trunk, then the sides of the body, the head, the rump, the legs, and finally the belly. When male rabbits are young, the quality of the rabbit down is the best, and it can be produced once about every 80 days.
5. Repeated rabbit down production. Half a month before producing rabbit down, first pull out all the coarse hair. Wait until the roots of the coarse hair grow level with the opening of the down shears, then shear the down. In this way, the difficulty of not being able to pull out all the coarse hair during repeated down shearing because the coarse hair is not much taller than the down is solved.