Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
This might be a dumb question but do mini lops have occasional fuzzy babies like holland lops do? Or do any other breeds also have fuzzys? Also what are you guys experience with french lops?
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- Thread starter Her Farmstead Rabbitry
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RabbitsOfTheCreek
Netherland Dwarf Breeder & Well-known Member
I've never owned a French Lop but I've had to take care of one for a few weeks and they need be brushed and have their butt checked DAILY
Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
RabbitsOfTheCreek
Netherland Dwarf Breeder & Well-known Member
To help prevent mats and poop that gets stuck
Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
French lops have short hair.
Yes, but they have LOTS of it, with a very thick undercoat to give it that nice rollback action. When they're molting it can make incredible mats around their back end - the "skirt" area - and big rabbits sometimes have a little trouble reaching around to keep themselves clean back there. I find it even in my older Satin bucks; their hair is silky, so doesn't usually have any tendency to mat, but as they get older they get stiff. Molting rabbits frequently don't make much of an attempt to remove the hair that's coming loose, so if a rabbit is too stiff to reach around, he needs some help. Same with cleaning their vent - really big rabbits, especially older ones, can have trouble reaching, whether they're molting or not.
I absolutely love French Lops. I raised them for a while when I was younger, and I don't remember any particular problem with matting, other than that described above, during molt. But they are truly massive with a minimum weight of 11lbs for bucks, 11.5lbs for does, and no upper weight limit; for feed requirements, imagine a small horse. I wish I could talk myself into having them again, but I can't afford them, in terms of either space or feed!
As for fuzzies, I think they show up a lot in Hollands because of the development of the American Fuzzy Lop. Holland Lops were used in that, so the wool gene is still lurking in many Hollands. Although I don't know too many Mini Lop breeders, none of them have mentioned that problem. But you can have a woolly bunny pop out in just about any breed (maybe not Brits...). I even had woollies come out of a Satin when we crossed him with an angora (since the wool gene is recessive, we shouldn't have had woollies in the first generation). My suspicion is that some breeders cross angora into another breed in an effort to increase fur density.
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We were once demonstrating spinning in the rabbit barn of a local county fair, when a French Lop breeder brought us a bag of loose fiber they had just groomed from one of their rabbits. It was amazingly long and soft underdown, and actually spun just like angora. I was amazed how much fiber that one rabbit was molting, so I can see how keeping it brushed out during a molt would be important.
