Fur-Bearing Animal and Rabbit Production (United States) — NAICS 11293

An investor's primer. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) 2022 code 11293 — a five-digit NAICS industry. This is a short rollup page; for full detail see the child primer for NAICS 112930.

1. Overview

NAICS 11293 is the farm-side raising of animals for their fur and, secondarily, for rabbit meat, fiber, pelts, and laboratory use. It is really two small, unrelated businesses under one heading: mink ranching — a commodity pelt producer selling into the global luxury-fur trade — and rabbit production, a fragmented niche of meat, fiber, and pet/lab breeders. Fox and chinchilla farming exist but are tiny.[1]

For investors, this is a textbook structurally declining commodity producer: U.S. mink pelt output has fallen roughly 80% in a decade, farm counts have more than halved, luxury brands and two U.S. states have turned against fur at retail, and disease risk hangs over the herd. There is no U.S.-listed pure-play producer — public exposure is indirect (a Finnish auction house, a luxury conglomerate), and everything else is private family farms and small processors. It is a "know-it, don't-own-it" industry for most investors.[1]

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

A five-digit NAICS industry can contain several six-digit national industries. NAICS 11293 contains exactly one: its sole child, NAICS 112930 — Fur-Bearing Animal and Rabbit Production. Because the parent and the child cover the identical scope, this level is a pass-through: every establishment counted at 11293 is also counted at 112930, and there is no other activity rolled up here.

That means this page is deliberately short. All the substance — how the value chain works, the investable names, the economics, the regulatory map — lives in the 112930 leaf primer, and nothing is lost by reading it directly. The one thing worth restating at this level is scope: the code captures only the living-animal, on-farm step (raising mink, fox, chinchilla, and rabbits). Downstream steps — hunting and trapping of wild fur-bearers (NAICS 114210), fur dressing and tanning (316110), and fur garment manufacturing (315) — sit in other industries, and that is where channel power and margins actually concentrate.[1]

3. Size (this level's figures)

No ingested federal stat_metrics exist for NAICS 11293 in our dataset — the ground-truth file for this node carries no values, so the figures below are drawn from the child (112930) primer and labeled by source. Because 11293 equals 112930, the child's numbers are this level's numbers.

Two caveats shape everything:

• The usual U.S. business statistics don't cover this code. The Economic Census and County Business Patterns — the establishment/receipts/payroll figures investors normally reach for — exclude crop and animal production (NAICS 111 and 112) entirely.[2] The authoritative counts come instead from USDA's Census of Agriculture (every five years) and its now-discontinued mink survey.
• Undercount is real. Ownership is dominated by small, individual, family operations, many below survey thresholds, so any tally understates the true number of tiny rabbitries in particular.

What we can state, from USDA:

For federal small-business programs, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) size standard for this code is $3.75 million in average annual receipts — an eligibility threshold, not an industry-revenue estimate.[3]

Bottom line: the entire industry — mink plus rabbit plus a sliver of fox/chinchilla — is a tens-of-millions-of-dollars farm-gate business, and shrinking.

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

With a single child, there is nothing to compare across children — the map is the same as 112930's. In brief:

• Public: no U.S.-listed producer. The closest listed proxy is Saga Furs Oyj (Nasdaq Helsinki: SAGCV), a Finnish fur auction and marketing house (not a farm), thinly traded, FY2023/24 revenue ~€41 M.[9] LVMH (Euronext Paris: MC) is a diffuse downstream luxury-demand proxy via Fendi; Canada Goose (NYSE/TSX: GOOS) is a former-exposure name that exited fur.[16] No ETF or index targets the industry.
• Private: the actual producers — family mink ranches in Wisconsin, Utah, Oregon and Idaho, a marketing cooperative (American Legend Cooperative), and small rabbit processors and grower networks. Value concentrates after the farm gate (grading, auction, certification, processing, cold chain), not in undifferentiated animal volume.

Full tables of names, tickers, and status are in the 112930 primer, §4.

5. How the money works

Mink is a price-taking commodity: economics reduce to pelts produced × auction price against a largely fixed cost base (feed, labor, veterinary care, pelting). Biology allows one annual cycle — the herd is committed almost a year before the price is known — so the business is working-capital-heavy and slow to adjust. Prices are brutally cyclical (roughly $94/pelt in 2011 to ~$21 in 2019, recovering to the mid-$30s), and below-cost years force exits.[4] Rabbit runs on niche unit economics — does × litters × kits weaned × feed efficiency for meat, direct-to-consumer sales for Angora fiber, and steadier lab/biologicals supply — where processing access and inspection status often matter more than farm size. Use farm-appropriate metrics here, not utility rate base, REIT funds-from-operations (FFO), or mining all-in sustaining cost (AISC). Full detail in 112930, §5.

6. Demand drivers

Mink demand is downstream and mostly offshore — finished fur into luxury apparel, concentrated in China, Russia and East Asia — so U.S. ranchers ride a world price they don't set. Two shocks compounded the cyclical downturn: a wave of luxury brands going fur-free (Gucci, Prada, Versace, Armani, plus department stores), and the Danish cull of ~17 million mink in 2020. Faux fur is a persistent substitute; certification (e.g. Furmark) is increasingly the price of luxury-channel access.[15] Rabbit demand is domestic and niche — specialty and ethnic cuisine, a small sustainable-protein following, fiber-arts hobbyists, and research/pet markets — with growth resting more on reliable inspected processing than on broad consumer conversion.[16]

7. Regulation

The regulatory picture is identical to the child's. Key points: there is no federal on-farm welfare standard for fur animals (the Animal Welfare Act largely exempts food/fiber animals; state cruelty statutes govern).[11] Rabbit meat is a non-amenable species — USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspection is voluntary, fee-for-service, which caps large-retail access.[13] The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Fur Products Labeling Act requires species/origin/treatment disclosure.[14] California (AB 44) and Oregon (HB 2924) ban the sale of new fur (both effective Jan 1, 2023), but no U.S. state bans mink farming; a federal "Mink VIRUS Act" has been introduced but not enacted.[12][13] Disease is a live regulatory driver — SARS-CoV-2 and H5N1 in mink, Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV2) in rabbits.[13][17] Note: USDA discontinued the annual mink survey in 2025, so the July 2025 report is effectively the last official series.[4] Full detail in 112930, §7.

8. Consolidation

The dominant dynamic on the fur side is secular contraction, not competition for share: mink farm counts fell from 236 (2017) to 110 (2022) as marginal family operations exit at sub-break-even prices, consolidating output into fewer, larger, lower-cost ranches.[6][7] Supporting infrastructure has thinned in parallel — North American Fur Auctions (NAFA) collapsed in 2019 and Kopenhagen Fur is winding down — leaving Saga Furs as the main surviving Western auction venue.[9][10] Rabbit remains fragmented with selective channel consolidation (e.g. the 2025 Natural State Rabbit / Blue Ridge combination), not a public-company roll-up.[16]

9. Risks

Because this level equals its one child, the risk map is 112930's: terminal demand decline on the fur side (brand fur-free policies, retail sales bans); commodity price volatility (auction swings from ~$94 to ~$21/pelt); disease/biosecurity shocks (SARS-CoV-2, H5N1, RHDV2 mass culls and movement bans); regulatory/legislative tail-risk (potential farming bans and buy-outs); input-cost risk (feed, labor, energy); concentration and illiquidity (no public pure-play, few buyers, thinned marketing infrastructure); data/underwriting risk (agricultural data exclusions plus the discontinued mink survey); and succession/execution risk in multi-generation family ownership. Rabbit adds thin margins, low consumer familiarity, and no mandatory inspection.[4][12][13][17]

10. How to invest and the outlook

There is no clean public route. The closest listed proxy is Saga Furs Oyj (Helsinki: SAGCV) — an auction house, not a farmer, thinly traded and exposed to the same secular decline.[9] LVMH (MC) is only a diffuse downstream proxy; Canada Goose (GOOS) is a former-exposure name.[16] No U.S. ticker or ETF gives targeted exposure. The private route means owning or lending to a farm or processor — a mink ranch is a capital-intensive, deeply cyclical bet with real regulatory and disease tail-risk in a declining market; rabbit ventures have low entry barriers but thin margins, with the steadier corners in laboratory supply and channel/processing infrastructure rather than animal volume.

Net assessment: the reported trend and the direction of policy point to continued secular decline for the fur side, with the rabbit side likely to persist as a stable-but-small niche whose growth depends on reliable processing and distribution. Interesting to understand, largely un-investable through public markets, and a difficult private allocation.

For the complete analysis — value chain, full name-by-name investable universe, detailed economics, and the full regulatory and disease record — see the child primer, NAICS 112930.

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Sources

Drawn from the child primer (NAICS 112930); numbering matches that primer.

1. U.S. Census Bureau / NAICS Association. "NAICS Code 112930 — Fur-Bearing Animal and Rabbit Production" (2022). https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?v=2022&code=112930
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns — Methodology" (excludes crop and animal production, NAICS 111 and 112). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
3. U.S. Small Business Administration. "Table of Small Business Size Standards" — NAICS 112930, $3.75 million average annual receipts (2023). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
4. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. "Mink" (released July 11, 2025; 2024 crop-year data; notes survey discontinuation). https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/mink0725.pdf
5. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. "2022 Census of Agriculture — Other Animals and Animal Products, U.S. Data" (mink: 110 farms, 307,834 head; rabbits: 6,400 farms, 3,058 farms sold 438,955 rabbits for $8.571 M). https://www.nass.usda.gov/agcensus/
6. Humane World for Animals. "The number of US mink fur farms plummets…" (236 farms in 2017, 110 in 2022), 2024. https://www.humaneworld.org/en/blog/us-mink-fur-farm-numbers-fall
7. Saga Furs Oyj. "Financial Bulletin FY2023/2024" and "Share and Shareholders" (HEL: SAGCV; FY revenue ~€41 M). https://www.sagafurs.com/our-company/investors/
8. CBC News. "Historic fur auction house granted creditor protection status" (North American Fur Auctions, 2019). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/north-american-fur-auctions-creditor-protection-1.5348510
9. Animal Legal & Historical Center, Michigan State University. "Fur Production and Fur Laws." https://www.animallaw.info/intro/fur-production-and-fur-laws
10. Humane World for Animals / Fur Free Alliance. "Fur bans" (California AB 44 and Oregon HB 2924, both effective Jan 1, 2023). https://www.furfreealliance.com/fur-bans/
11. Animal Welfare Institute. "Mink VIRUS Act" and H5N1 / SARS-CoV-2 context (introduced, not enacted; buy-out proposals). https://awionline.org/legislation/mink-virus-act
12. Natural State Rabbit / Blue Ridge Rabbit Meat Co. (company farms + independent growers; processing consolidated Aug 2025). https://nsrabbitmeat.com/ and https://www.blueridgerabbitmeatco.com/our-story.html
13. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. "Rabbit From Farm to Table" (non-amenable species; voluntary fee-for-service inspection). https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/meat-fish/rabbit-farm-table
14. Federal Trade Commission. "How to Comply with the Fur Products Labeling Act." https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/how-comply-fur-products-labeling-act
15. Fendi / LVMH. "Leather & Fur" responsible-sourcing materials (Furmark-certified pelts; not separately reported in LVMH results). https://www.fendi.com/sustainability/en/responsible-product/leather-fur
16. Canada Goose Holdings Inc. Annual Report on Form 20-F, FY2025 (ended fur purchasing 2021, manufacturing by end-2022). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001690511
17. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "SARS-CoV-2 Exposure in Escaped Mink, Utah, USA." https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/3/20-4444_article
18. USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). "Developing a Sustainable Rabbit Enterprise…" (limited demand and volatile feed costs as scaling barriers). https://projects.sare.org/