What to Note When Plucking Long-Haired Rabbits

1 Overview

What to Note When Plucking Long-Haired Rabbits

1. Avoid plucking these rabbits.

Skip kits, pregnant does, nursing does, and breeding bucks. Kit skin is tender – plucking tears it, even life-threatening. Plucking a pregnant doe risks miscarriage or stillbirth; a nursing doe’s milk drops; a breeding buck’s semen quality falls, causing mating trouble. So avoid plucking them.

2. Pluck at the right time.

Pick a good time. Do not pluck in heat – long-haired rabbits are sensitive to change, and heat is very bad; in summer pluck at dawn or night when cooler, best on cloudy-rainy days. In winter pluck in sunlight, only the long hair, leaving short, so the coat is not fully bare and cold resistance does not drop – even freezing.

3. Treat torn skin at once.

Wrong technique tears skin; treat the wound with iodine or gentian violet to block bacteria, and check it; if it worsens, treat promptly.

4. Supplement nutrition. New wool needs much energy, so before plucking feed enough protein, minerals, and trace elements; lack slows weak, dull growth and hurts profit.

5. Keep the environment clean.

After plucking, the body focuses on regrowing wool, lowering resistance; if the environment is not clean, germs invade and the rabbit may sicken or die. So after plucking keep the hutch clean, dry, and low in microbes.

Tip: Wear disinfected gloves to pluck; if by hand, disinfect the hands, and disinfect the shears too.