I GOT rabbits. And thus have I graduated from average urban farmgirl to full maniac. These are farmstead animals, employed members of my backyard system. I'm not going to eat them. They're fiber rabbits.
Fiber rabbits! A few years ago I didn't know there was such a thing. Fiber rabbits belong to a special category of utilitarian farm animals that are adorable and don't have to die. That would be along with milkers, egg layers, bees, guardian animals and non-rabbit fiber animals like sheep. As a sensitive wuss vegetarian and farmstead enthusiast I really appreciate this category.
Even with the egg layers and dairy animals some loss of life must take place. Boy goats and roosters don't make eggs and milk, but eggs and milk cannot be produced without their existing at some point (as breeders or offspring) creating a conundrum most readily solved by someone--not a sensitive wuss vegetarian--eating them. Fiber animals of both sexes give humans something nice without anyone having to die.
THERE ARE those who believe using other animals for any selfish human purpose is wrong. Animals exist for their own reasons, they say, suggesting we leave them to it. And I fear these presumable vegans are right, though I selfishly hope they are not entirely right. The thorny fact is that laying hens and milk cows and fluffball sheep would not exist without our having bred them into existence. So I think maybe technically, for better or worse, they exist for reasons inextricably bound to us. Same goes for dogs, cats, roses and most things we eat.
All this human selection is a tremendous responsibility. There is a legitimate argument to be made that it is cruel to breed sheep and rabbits so heavily furred that they depend on us to regularly relieve them of their coats, or poultry who cannot survive the wild. I don't know yet whether I can adequately justify taking advantage of such breeding, but nor am I convinced of its inherent wrongness.
Animal rights sorts aren't the only skeptics of agriculture, of course. It is rather hip in certain circles to pine for hunter gatherer days--paleo eating and squatting to defecate and all that. Some people find it more honest to hunt or trap a wild animal than befriend, cohabit with and take advantage of a domestic one. I respect that way of thinking, but take a different view. And not just because I love cheese and bread and tomatoes and wool and a bunch of other things agriculture makes possible.
I THINK agriculture is beautiful. Done right. Joel Salatin is fond of saying that good agriculture should be 'aesthetically and aromatically, sensually romantic.' Good agriculture can give its participants bliss. I recently grew a buckwheat cover crop on one of my raised beds and watched my hens tear it up. In that moment was bliss--theirs and mine. They clucked self-actualization as they turned the soil for my fall crops.
Agriculture is a millenia-long collaboration among humans and other species. It's bold, messy and morally complex. It has the capacity to be epically destructive: to the land and to the lives of all who work for or eat from it. So even when you have a postage stamp city homestead, producing piddling quantities of anything, there is much to consider.
And consider I do! The ethics, the economics. I fret myself silly until I decide to go ahead and see if I can, say, keep a pair of Angora rabbits happy and healthy in my yard, and make clothes from their spare fur without ever hurting them, and actually come out ahead when I crunch the numbers. I weigh the costs of housing, organic pellets, grains for sprouting fodder against the benefits of making myself and everyone I know dope luxury scarves and hand warmers of absurd softness. From my own freaking bunnies! I think the numbers look good. We shall see.
My buns are two months old now, learning the ropes along with me: when to hop about the yard and when to rest and digest in the safe hutch, how to relax into my grooming attentions, why collaborating with my wishes is worthwhile (treats!). I was at their conception. I met them hours after their birth.
Luckily I have had about six months to practice on my neighbors' English Angoras, one of whom birthed my own bunny bairns. They have taught me rabbit ways, rabbit treat preferences, how not to offend. (I did not realize this, but rabbits are easily offended.) They shed, I brush them, I accumulate luscious heaps of Angora wool. I watch Netflix, I spin the wool on a drop spindle, I knit the yarn into items of clothing, I wear the clothing. Every part of the process is meditative and gratifying.
THERE ARE other perks. I take very seriously my role as a curator of cuteness in this world. And goodlord: it's almost unbearable how plush these wooly bunny bodies are. The creatures themselves are wonderful much like Angora scarves are. Fluff comfort. The purest kind of soft.
The rabbits eat things neither the chickens nor I particularly care for, like kale stems. And they love to chill in shady nooks neither the chickens nor I can squeeze into. They produce tidy, round fertilizer nuggets that can be applied directly. I am starting to see their niche in the backyard ecosystem.
As I look upon my yard these days--hens laying, bees foraging, bunnies furring, corn looming, beans working the pole--I am amazed at all the creation. Maybe humans love agriculture because it makes us feel like God. But I'm not sovereign over my yard. I'm just semi-competent designer slash manager. I'm in awe of what is going on back there, the crazy way all of us creatures are making something together.
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