Why is Angora Wool So Expensive? Reasons to Explain

When buying wool products, you may find out that Angora wool products seem to be more expensive than others. Here we listed some reasons for that.

You’ll notice that some cool fibers are significantly more expensive than others when searching for one to use or purchase, especially Angora rabbit wool. What is it about Angora wool that makes it cost more than most other fibers, and why is Angora wool so expensive?

Knitwear and other textiles are frequently made from Angora wool, a high-end natural fiber. Due to the high value of its wool, Angora wool is divided into different grades, each of which has a different quality and price. Purebred Angora rabbits produce the best fur, which is typically very expensive because it is long, soft, and shiny.

Read for more information about Angora wool.

Why is Angora Wool So Expensive?

The cost of producing, harvesting, and using Angora wool means that the cost of purchasing it will also be higher.

Because Angora is so soft and highly sought-after, it is more expensive than most other spinning fibers. It is also obtained from raised, individual rabbits.

The fact that Angora wool is easier to feel and tends to fly away when worked with makes it slightly more difficult to handle than less delicate fibers.

Here are also reasons to explain Why is Cashmere So Expensive and Why is Merino Wool So Expensive.

Cost of Angora Rabbits and Wool

The price of the rabbits themselves is the primary factor influencing the cost of Angora wool.

Angora rabbits are more expensive to purchase and more difficult to find than meat rabbits. Angora is also manually and individually harvested from rabbits. 12 ounces of wool can be sheared at a time from an Angora rabbit which is extremely productive.

Compare that 12 ounces of Angora wool to the roughly 10 pounds of wool you would receive from a sheep. One of the more expensive methods of obtaining fiber from a wool animal is shearing, which requires a lot of labor.

Cost of Angora Rabbits

Angora rabbits are more expensive than the majority of other rabbits, to begin with, and highly productive lines of Angoras will be more expensive than the typical Angora. Most Angora rabbits are $250-300. Because of certain genetics or high demand, Angoras can be found less or more easily.

In light of the fact that an Angora’s sole purpose is to produce wool, paying less for a low producer does not represent cost savings; rather, it represents a time and feed expense. It will cost you money to purchase a nice, high-quality rabbit because it takes great rabbitries to raise great Angora rabbits.

Differences in Angora Wool

Angora wool has variations, primarily in length, guard hair content, and amount of wool on the rabbit.

• French Angora rabbits tend to have more guard hair than other Angora rabbits, this makes them easy to care for since they are less likely to matt. Because the guard hairs are not as soft as the rest of the wool, they also make the fiber less pliable for spinning.
• Satin Angora rabbits have a bit of a different fiber, it is super shiny. Since there is less wool produced per rabbit when compared to other Angoras, satin Angoras will also produce much more expensive wool.
• English Angoras are the Angoras where you can hardly see their faces! The wool from these Angoras is softer but needs grooming because they have fewer guard hairs. In addition to having a lot of haloes and producing more wool per pound than the other two Angoras listed above, English rabbits are also the ones with the highest wool yield.
• German Angoras are more of a production type Angora, these are the ones you want if you are using the fiber and want the most spinnable fiber per rabbit. You will get the best value for your money in terms of feed costs per ounce of wool from these Angoras, which have been chosen to produce high yields of high quality wool.
• The final type of Angora is a giant Angora, which, as you may have guessed, is a large-bodied Angora. These rabbits can only be ruby eyed white, also known as REW, which means they have pink eyes and all-white fur.

Naturally, there would also be hybrid Angoras, which would result from crossing two of the aforementioned breeds.

Care of Angora Rabbit

An Angora rabbit requires more care than the majority of other rabbits, primarily because of their wool. To prevent matting, some Angoras require daily brushing or even blowouts with a dog grooming blower.

While not true of all Angoras, this lengthens the time needed to care for any rabbit with a coat that needs attention.

Wool is Hand-harvested

The wool from an Angora rabbit is hand-harvested, by clipping, brushing, or plucking (pulling off loose hair with your hands). You can brush or pluck shedding rabbits. It is necessary to clip non-shedding rabbits, such as the German Angora.

Every 90 days, all of the rabbits in a rabbitry—regardless of how many there are—are hand-harvested for their wool.

Angoras Must Be Kept Clean

You must keep Angora rabbits tidy! All rabbits should be kept in clean housing, but Angora rabbits in particular should have clean housing because dirty housing will stain the wool. This means that Angoras require individual cages with feeders, waterers, and resting mats, all of which must be purchased.

Additionally, the time required to perform routine maintenance chores like feeding and watering the rabbits increases when they are all housed in individual cages. Pricing the fiber requires factoring in your time and effort, even if you are raising your own Angoras.

Feeding Angoras Costs More

Since Angora rabbits are growing wool constantly, they also need to be well-fed to keep producing high-quality fiber. Compared to lower-quality feed, high-quality feed is more expensive.

In comparison to another rabbit of the same size, age, and stage of reproduction, an Angora is, therefore, more expensive to feed each day.

Additionally, the majority of Angora breeders would feed their rabbits something to prevent wool block, most likely a fruit like a pineapple or digestive enzyme supplements. It costs more money and takes more time to give these, even though neither of them is particularly expensive.

Angoras Need Climate Control

The final reason that Angora fiber is more expensive than most other fibers is that Angoras are temperature sensitive and must be kept cool. Thus, while Angora rabbits thrive in the winter, special attention is needed to maintain a comfortable temperature for them during the warmer months of the year.

While Angoras in particular must be taken into account because, while generally speaking, rabbits do not like the heat, keeping them will cost more money.

Conclusion: the Cost of Angora Wool

Angora rabbits are expensive to purchase, require additional care to keep their wool in good condition, and require manual shearing or brushing out four times a year to harvest the wool.

Angora wool typically costs a little bit more than alpaca wool, but to make it more elastic, Angora is frequently blended with wool or synthetic fibers.

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