Rabbit Pelts

(Pictured above: a chinchilla rex pelt)

Rex Rabbits

The pelts of any rabbit breed can be successfully tanned, however the rex rabbit is especially considered a ‘fur’ breed. Rex fur is short, plush and extremely dense. It looks and feels like a velvet carpet. The pictures on this page are all of rex pelts. We wish you could feel how dense and springy the fur is.

(Pictured to the right: opal rex pelt.)



By the way, where are the REST of these rabbits?

You might like to know that the rabbits providing these pelts were used to feed predator-pets (cats and dogs) a species-appropriate diet. The pelts were left overs, so we tanned them. See Homemade Pet Food.

Just so you know, rabbits are never ever skinned alive, as some special-interest groups might like others to believe. Rabbits are always used for food, either for people or pets, which leaves the pelts available for using. It's how man has subsisted for millennia.

Please feel completely free to wear rabbit fur with a good conscience!

Preparing Your Rabbit Pelts for Tanning

• Cool the fresh skin by dropping it into a 5 gallon bucket of cold water, one by one, as you process your cull rabbits. They can remain submerged until you’re done with butchering.
  
  
• Thoroughly rinse all the blood out of the pelt. Any dried blood left in the pelt will stain the skin. This is no problem, unless you plan to make a garment worn with fur inside and skin outward, such as a winter cap.
  
  
• Squeeze the extra water out of the pelt (don’t twist or wring).
  
  
• Stretch the pelt on a wire pelt-stretcher. Or, you could tack it to a large piece of plywood, skin side outward, stretching it smooth without overstretching.
  
  
• Carefully scrape any meat and fat off the skin side of the pelt.
  
  
• Allow pelt to completely and thoroughly dry. Do not package the pelt until it is already completely dry.
  
  
• To store stretched and dried pelts, use moth crystals (paradichlorobenzene), not mothballs (naphthalene). Do not store in plastic.
  
  
• If you plan to tan the pelts yourself, you may freeze them after squeezing out the extra water, and accumulate several pelts to tan at once.

(Pictured: a castor rex pelt.)

How to Tan Rabbit Pelts
Tanning requires several weeks of soaking in an alum or acid ‘brine,’ and then lots of elbow grease stretching and softening the pelt. The finished result is almost magical -- a soft and supple, incredibly warm, material that can be sown into garments, hats, shoes, gloves, rugs, wall hangings, bedspreads, even yurts or teepees, if you have enough pelts. In this fashion, animal skins have preserved human lives in northern climates for millennia.

(Pictured - a black otter rex rabbit pelt)

TANNING RECIPES:

How to Tan Rabbit Hides
Published in 1983 in the Mother Earth News. I've used these directions for nearly as long as they've been in print.

Home Tanning Process Preserves Pelts
Published in The Mother Earth News in 2001. A clearly written recipe using bran and battery acid. Looked to be easy to follow.

TANNING BOOKS

Tips from the experts...or at least from others with lots of tanning experience...is invaluable to any homesteader or backyard rabbit breeder. Here are two excellent resources:

Tan Your Hide!: Home Tanning Leathers & Furs

The Ultimate Guide to Skinning and Tanning: A Complete Guide to Working with Pelts, Fur, and Leather

Learn how to tan your rabbit (and cow, sheep, deer, etc) pelts at home. You'll find all sorts of tanning recipes, including tawing, smoking, curing with brains, and old-fashioned tanning with bark brine for many months (bark brine is used for making leather only).

These books will tell you what you need, where to get it, how to do it, and even patterns.


ALUM:

1 Pound Alum Crystals...........25 Pound Bulk Alum Crystals
(1 pound provides 2 cups of alum, enough to tan 7-8 rabbit pelts, when using the Mother Earth tanning recipe as we do.)

(Pictured below: a broken chinchilla rex pelt.)





This is the back side of a tanned castor rex rabbit pelt.

If it had been a fully primed pelt, it would be completely white. As it is, you can see the darkness in the pelt on the edges. This pelt was nearly prime over the back and down the sides, but not on the belly.

Even when freshly removed, the skin is white when prime and darkened when the coat is still growing in.

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