RABBITS FOR PROFIT

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1919, Page 4

RABBITS FOR PROFIT

FABULOUS PRICES FOR SKINS.

The great demand for rabbit fur and skins generally is fast removing the stigma, of pest or curse' from the elusive New Zealand bunny The finer fur is sorely wanted by felt hat manufacturers, and for the really high-class article Americans pay stupendous prices. By a curious turn of the wheel of circumstances, it is not at all unlikely that tho lucky rabbiter wears in the composition of his best hat the fur of somo Otago rabbits that he has caugh* and that have enabled him to pay, say.. £4 for _ his hat. Only rabbiters and those similarly well-paid can afford the genuine fur. hat of to-day Others have to take the wool felt goods. Many a fur coat, too, that masquerades as what it is not owes its origin to rabbit skins, and so the bunny is now figuring high up in the' list of exports. As meat he is now about 70 to 80 per cent, dearer than he was before the war.

Dunedin is the great New Zealand market for rabbit skins, and the business is one calling for exceptional skill and judgment. The Dunedin rabbitskin buyers are past masters at the game.

Recent prices in Dunedin for North Island skins—inferior to those of the far South—are £243 15s for a parcel of. 423 pounds; £229 lis .6d for a parcel of 3951b, all net profit and all charges paid. Prices realised range from 50d to 212 d per lb. A line in a 4051b bale returned £208, or, say, 10s per lb; but that is not a high figure. Some London prices at auction on 24th September for New Zealand skins were 300 d,■ 265 d, 2SOd, 285 d, 280 d, 2S4d, 256 d, 203 d. They have brought as. low ■as 13_d to 16jd per lb for best winter skins and 2d to _d for summer skins. There -is plenty of money just now in rabbit skins.