can you have a short coat in a litter

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how old are you looking at the litter? They may not get wooly til 6-8 weeks.
It's also possible that someone in the ped doesn't have two copies of the wooly gene.
 
I agree with sky. My French don't usually get obviously wooly until 5-6 weeks old. I do know someone who bred two French and ended up with a litter where only half of the kits were wooled... I have a feeling there was a non-French or even non-angora rabbit relative in there somewhere.
 
I don't know about angoras but there can be extreamly sparsely coated lionheads who look normally furred but will produce double maned kits so they must carry the LH gene but for some reason it isn't showing up in the coat.

The Lionhead maned gene is dominant while Angora is recessive so two angora parents should only be able to produce angora kits, they cannot hide a normal fur gene BUT there are un-identified modifiers that boost the fur traits (making French woolers different from English different from German etc..) and perhaps this one kit is lacking theses.
 
I have two kits that have shorter fur and no side facial trimmings .. as the rest does.. The fur isn't like a normal kit but it is shorter than the others.. and I have one kit that has allot of fur on its face... so it is so weird to have different looking rabbits in fur length in the same litter.
 
Breeding for modifiers is tricky. I breed harlequins and tri colours and maintaining a rich deep red and proper markings is a real pain.

Keeping records of the kits wool growth will help you understand which doe and buck combination gives the best results and will let you warn buyers if certain bloodlines you produce take longer to get their fur so they don't have a heart attack if they get a few late bloomers in their litters like your two.
 
Oh, that's not weird.
French should have little to no facial trimmings. Depending on the line, you will have various facial trimmings, wool caps or no wool caps, tufted ears and those without tuffs.

Ansel is my black show buck. His wool grows 5-8 inches long, barely sheds/molts up to 5 mos, and he has no facial furnishing, but has a wool cap.

The himi doe has much shorter fur, 3-4 inches, has a whole lot of guard hairs, and does the 3 mos thing. She also has ear tuffs.

If these two are ever bred, this would be interesting to see who gets the shorter fur, the ear tuffs and more facial hair.

Same happens with my Jerseys, except it seems color dependent. The two REW sisters have 3-4 inch fur, while the Blue molted out to a conservative 2 inch coat. The black otters have 3-4 inch coats, while the black also has a shorter 2 inch coat.


The Fa/EA crosses have side facial trimmings, but no ear tufts like their sire. They are half the size of their dam, but they carry her density of fur.<br /><br />__________ Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:03 am __________<br /><br />This is why I always caution against cross breeding. I know it's a wet towel, but getting the right modifiers to match up in the same breed is hard enough.

Yes they should have two copies of the wool gene, but if you are crossed with a non wooler, you change the mods necessary to have the right wool in the right places for the right angora.

Sometimes, if you cross Angoras, like English to French, you lose or add all sorts of things that will show up repeatedly in your litters.
 
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