Over Halloween weekend, the front display window of Vera’s Treasures in Honokaa could have been called Knitters Delight. There were vibrantly colored yarns made from sheep wool, a spinning wheel, and several handmade scarves and shawls.
And if the scarves looked extraordinarily cozy, that’s because they had a little help from an unlikely source down the road.
“This is a rabbit ranch,” Cathy Perrins of Hillside Farm said, indicating the two-story hutch in her backyard. “It’s like a microfarm.” A dozen English angora rabbits call the hutch home; fine strands of angora hair clung to just about every surface of the homemade structure.
The rabbits spend their days munching on grass and ti leaves and doing what they do best: growing lots of fur.
“They have a face, if you can find it,” Perrins said, reaching into the top cage and gently taking out one of its residents. Its shaggy ears bent slightly at the tips, and its large brown eyes were indeed hard to see. Its furry nose twitched.
English angoras are Dr. Seuss drawings brought to life, fluffy to the point of being absurd. Describing them as balls of cotton is almost an insult. Their fur is so soft it seems to dissolve past your fingers, so lightweight that it might as well be made of air.
But it is strong enough that it can be made into yarn — in this case, the Hula Bunny Yarn that the scarves and shawls at Vera’s are made of. One adult angora will grow about a pound of fiber annually; it will produce its own body weight in five years.
“It’s so funny, because they look so fluffy and big,” said Ross Perrins, Cathy’s husband. “But then (underneath) they’re skinny and scrawny.”
Three times a year, the Perrins’ rabbits get clipped, a process similar to shearing a sheep (the clippers even resemble miniature sheep shears). It’s not harmful for the rabbits, who welcome losing the excess weight.
The Hillside rabbits are “livestock, not pets,” Cathy Perrins said. “They’re too much maintenance for pets.” The angoras must be combed frequently so their fur doesn’t mat between clippings.
At one point, the couple had 55 rabbits. That was when they actually lived on a farm, a small piece of leased land in the Hamakua district (they have since downsized both in terms of land and rabbits).
“I just wanted somebody to eat the grass,” Perrins said, adding that she had grown tired of mowing constantly. Her husband didn’t want sheep, so the couple opted for rabbits instead. This didn’t solve the problem of mowing, but it did provide an easy way to get rid of the grass once it was cut.
Maintaining the farm was overwhelming — both Perrins have day jobs (Cathy is an architectural drafter, and Ross works at Honokaa High).
It turned out that the only thing making any money was the “flock” of pedigree angoras, which had grown considerably from the original pair of rabbits the Perrins had shipped over from Oahu.
Later, they bought six rabbits from the mainland to keep the genetic lines strong.
Because the Perrins were breeding according to American Rabbit Breeders Association show standards, they could sell the pedigree rabbits to enthusiasts around the state. Since 2009, they have sold 150 angoras.
The market for the rabbits themselves is not as strong as it used to, but yarn remains a constant seller.
The “bunny money,” as the Perrins call it, has helped pay for cruises to Alaska and will soon help pay for a new solar panel system.
The Perrins just sent about 20 pounds of angora wool off to a mill in Pennsylvania (there are no spinning mills in the state of Hawaii), where it will be blended with silk and Merino sheep wool. When the yarn comes back to Hawaii this month, it’ll be enough to make 440 2-ounce skeins.
“Silk makes it shiny, Merino makes it bouncy, and then we add the bunny to make it ungodly soft,” Cathy Perrins said. She also gets clipped fiber back from Hillside rabbits that have gone off to new homes.
Hula Bunny yarn typically comes in two colors: silvery gray and sandy. It’s sold at Vera’s Treasures and Bentley’s for $28. Angora is considered a luxury fiber (one of the reasons Perrins picked angoras when choosing rabbits for the farm was to have her own source of the costly yarn).
This year, a new Hula Bunny color will be introduced: pure white.
The Perrins expect to have enough in stock to create dyed blue skeins using the wild indigo that grows around their house.
Mills have trouble spinning pure angora yarn because it is so soft and fine, but good old-fashioned spinning wheels can do that job. Angora fur doesn’t need to be washed before being spun, as sheep’s wool does in order to remove lanolin and dust.
It can, in fact, be spun right off the bunny.
Perrins brought a large buck named Dozer into the living room and sat in front of her spinning wheel to demonstrate, gently taking loose fluff from Dozer and feeding it into the wheel to make a long continuous strand of gray yarn.
“It has to do with tension and twist,” Perrins said, foot steadily pushing a pedal to make the wheel spin. Unblended English angora yarn isn’t the best for knitting because it has no elasticity, but it can be felted and used as an accent fiber.
The only movement from Dozer was his twitching nose.
“He will eventually get bored and pee on you, though,” Perrins cautioned.
For more information about Hillside Farm and Hula Bunny Yarn, visit https://sites.google.com/site/hillsidefarmhawaii/home.
The Big Island Rabbit Show takes place Saturday at the University of Hawaii at Hilo Komohana Research Extension Center. Doors open at 9 a.m.
The community is invited to attend.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
