English Angora or English Lop

[Maleficent]

What are your guy's opinions on these two types of rabbits? I really want to get serious about showing and never could with my dutch as I never really had anything worth showing. Both breeds I absolutely adore the looKS of and I have friends who work with both breeds who really want me to work with their breeds.

I love the angora as it has so many purposes (fiber, pet, and can be meat with certain lines) yet I live the lops for their gentle personality and those to die for ears! The angora come in my favorite color verity though (BEW) which the lops don't come in that I am aware of.

The lops have minimal grooming though, but I don't mind having to maintain that floof of the angora, as it is I already groom my extended famiy's pets.

 

[SixGun]

I have experience with both Elops and english angoras. The elops I find to be somewhat susceptible to disease, and their ears make them rather high maintenance. A beautiful rabbit can be ruined if stressed enough to chew its own ears. I also find them to be more susceptible to overheating.
English Angora are beautiful. Grooming is a must and is necessary more often than the other angora breeds. Other angora breeds would also be better meat producers. Also, as far as a show career, english angora rarely stay competitive after about 7 months of age. The first coat is the best for show standards.
Just my two cents.

 

[Maleficent]

I have experience with both Elops and english angoras. The elops I find to be somewhat susceptible to disease, and their ears make them rather high maintenance. A beautiful rabbit can be ruined if stressed enough to chew its own ears. I also find them to be more susceptible to overheating.
English Angora are beautiful. Grooming is a must and is necessary more often than the other angora breeds. Other angora breeds would also be better meat producers. Also, as far as a show career, english angora rarely stay competitive after about 7 months of age. The first coat is the best for show standards.
Just my two cents.

Thank you for your insight! It's nice to have the view point from someone who had both and could point out the flaws in both. Someone else has pointed out that fact about other angoras as well, but I just don't feel as enthusiastic about them as I do for the English verity.

Out of the two which would you personally recommend?

 

[SixGun]

I am completely biased, and I'm not sure I'll ever be without Angora. In fact I can see myself branching into having all 4 recognized breeds in the ARBA, plus Germans. I think they are absolutely the best.

 

[Maleficent]

I'm personally very drawn to the English Angora myself. I live the lops as well but just because I don't work with now doesn't mean I can never work with them.

 

[SixGun]

precisely, the number of breeds you have is only limited by the amount of cage space you have.

 

[almiraj]

English Angoras are a ton of fun but they can be a headache for showing. First off there are three types of bloodlines: Wool, Show and Mixed. Wool focused bloodlines create an animal that sheds out well and produces good wool. A Show line should focus on animals that grow long dense coats that don't shed as often. Mixed lines are not focused for either wool or show.
Now I had a wool bred buck that the lady took as a show rabbit and did really,really well with.
Now color can be a challenge too. I was sold a 'black' buck who grew up to be a black pearl. He was beautiful but I crossed him with a Lilac Tort, still thinking he was a 'black'. Some say crossing a shaded with a tort just 'muddies' up the colors.
Since your looking at doing BEW, color isn't an issue if you are breeding BEW to BEW. The only problem is there are so many people that breed BEW just for color. So inspect your prospects for type, wool, and pedigree.
Now EA are wonderful little rabbits with great personalities, and should be relaxed enough to let you hold them anyway you have to to harvest wool. Problems are grooming...
Wool: I keep the bash, secondry wool trimed and comb and grow the prime wool. Generally wool bred EA can be plucked to harvest the coat easily.
Show: You need to invest in a blower to reduce combing and keeping the coat dense and long.
Wool Block: Long hair binds up in GI track very easily, a good/special diet to reduce isk of wool block is a must. I had to cull an EA that couldn't handle eating anything other than pellets.
You'll want to invest in a lint roller company... seriously you will be buying them like crazy.

I love my fuzzy buns despite the challenges. I recomend the breed to anyone that has had rabbits before and is looking for something new.

 

[hotzcatz]

If you're going to be working with BEW by all fishes great and small WRITE IT DOWN ON THEIR PEDIGREE. I swear it is impossible to eradicate the Vienna gene from a non BEW herd once that *%###*!! gene gets into it. For that reason alone, I despise BEW.

It's a fiber rabbit, half the time you can't see their eyes anyway, so why does it matter the eye color? REW can hide BEW, so even if you do BEW you could end up with REW as well. Just go for REW and eradicate the Vienna gene.

But, if you must, at least either eat the non-BEW offspring or sell them with a pedigree that states they carry Vienna. Even if you have to delete part of their pedigree if you want to sell them as a wooler, let the folks know the Vienna gene is in there somewhere.