My father (born 1903) lived in Oatlands during WWI & from a surprisingly early age regularly went out shooting rabbits. I think rabbit stew must have been a standard item on the family dinner table, but also know that his main focus was selling the skins. He released caged ferrets that would scurry down burrows & chase rabbits up to the surface, & had a pet dog that was good at chasing any rabbits that got away. He took great care in skinning the rabbits & pegging out their hides to dry & had a ready market for the skins. Hard for me to reconcile all this with his lifelong genuine love of animals, but the hunting & selling seems to have been expected of him. I have no idea whether any of Dad's rabbit skins found their way into vest manufacture, but the family had older sons fighting with the AIF overseas & certainly were involved in other forms of war effort. The only facts I can add to the current inquiry are that at the time rabbits were abundant in the Oatlands district, & that there was market demand for their skins. Best wishes. Joan -----Original Message----- From: aus-tasmania@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 10:50 AM To: Irene Schaffer ; aus-tasmania@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [AUS-Tas] Rabbit skin vests WW1 Sorry meant to say with the fur on the outside not the skin, as would have been expected. Irene > Dear list, a little bit off the track but I was wondering if anyone has > personal oral history about girl guides collecting rabbit skins for the > soldiers in WW1, I have found a reference on Trove that they did this in > 1915 in Hobart. > > My question is where would they have got them from and who would have made > them into vests and sent them off. I found a photo with a soldier wearing > one with the skin outside. > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUS-TASMANIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- AUS-Tasmania Mailing List Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~austashs/ Contact Admin AUS-Tasmania-Admin@rootsweb.com Search the Archive (type AUS-Tasmania in the list box) http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUS-TASMANIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message