She's so wiggly i'm afraid of cutting her. And she'd look as if a 2 year old kid did it! The lady who grooms does such a nice even job with clippers. But yes, the fur is coming off by itself and there's a little stuck to her kennel and toys. Usually there isn't any stuck to stuff. And she's not brushing out easy, sort of like strings of yarn. ormally she brushes right out. Someone said you can use a shopvac? How does that work? I may have to clip her with scissors. There's so much fur I don't know if I can pluck her all the way down to the skin...you're supposed to, right? Isn't the point to remove all the loose fur?
English Angora
- Thread starter FuzzMom
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KimitsuKouseki
Well-known member
did you not watch my video that I linked to you twice? XD
Plucking will pull at hair strands, so it will come from the skin. You're not breaking the fur.
It's is super easy, even if she wiggles you can do it. Mine loves it so she turns into goo, but its rly easy, she wiggles? grab at the side she shows you going like "mwahahahaha you though you could get away from me??? :twisted: ". It's fun to mess with your pets like that sometimes XD (thats me when I decide to hairdry my cats btw :laugh2: )
Grab at some fur, pull a little, dont force it, fluff will come by itself, put the handful of fluff away, repeat.
Eventually fluff will stop coming as easy, that means that area is plucked well and you can focus elsewhere. You dont have to pluck her naked (and shouldnt!), just until her fur stops coming by itself and her fur starts getting nice and flowy. By that point you should be able to run your figers through her coat easilly without too much fluff coming off with your hand.
Also, while clippers shorten the fur, it does not solve shedding issues at all.Shedding happens when the hair strand is ready to fall out from the skin. Shortening it will not change that. So if you clip insted of pluck an easy to pluck animal you'll just end up with one that just sheds a ton all the time. Shedding is very often what causes bad matting too, cause the strand goes wild and gets knotted with the surrounding hairs.
Plucking isalso a great bonding experience!
You keeping the fur btw?
Plucking will pull at hair strands, so it will come from the skin. You're not breaking the fur.
It's is super easy, even if she wiggles you can do it. Mine loves it so she turns into goo, but its rly easy, she wiggles? grab at the side she shows you going like "mwahahahaha you though you could get away from me??? :twisted: ". It's fun to mess with your pets like that sometimes XD (thats me when I decide to hairdry my cats btw :laugh2: )
Grab at some fur, pull a little, dont force it, fluff will come by itself, put the handful of fluff away, repeat.
Eventually fluff will stop coming as easy, that means that area is plucked well and you can focus elsewhere. You dont have to pluck her naked (and shouldnt!), just until her fur stops coming by itself and her fur starts getting nice and flowy. By that point you should be able to run your figers through her coat easilly without too much fluff coming off with your hand.
Also, while clippers shorten the fur, it does not solve shedding issues at all.Shedding happens when the hair strand is ready to fall out from the skin. Shortening it will not change that. So if you clip insted of pluck an easy to pluck animal you'll just end up with one that just sheds a ton all the time. Shedding is very often what causes bad matting too, cause the strand goes wild and gets knotted with the surrounding hairs.
Plucking isalso a great bonding experience!
You keeping the fur btw?
I did check out your website. Videos don't seem to have sound, so I couldn't follow. That dub visualimpairment of mine, lol. Are you creating anew breed...ARBA...or are you just gonna keep it "fun"? They sound like little balls of fur! You'll get some shorter coats with the Tan breed mixed in. And with your boy causing you afew extra "oops' litters you'll have plenty of colors to choose from, lol. Poodle fur on a bunny?? .That sounds cool and interesting. I do have a Walmart bg full of fluff from when the lady groomed her, I was planning on keeping it this time (she seems to release her coat every 3 to 4 months, so a true molting type and the breeder backed this up). I'm way more used to dogs and cats. Next pet will be a dog, thinking Shih Tzu but that's a project for much later down the line. Right now she's a 6.5 lb puffball and she'll weigh the same after I remove the fur, but everyone says how teeny she looks with no coat. It's amazing what a coat can do for a lady's appearance. I've had people think it was a different bunny! Want some pure white fur?? I've got it. I'll give the plucking thing a try. And I didn't know that about clipping/shedding. Thanks. I was more worried about just getting it off fast to prevent woolblock, which sounds like a fatal nightmare, according to the Net research I've done. I don't know how to spin and don't know anyone that does. How hard is it? Do you need big cumbersome tools? I think a spinning whhel would take up my whole living room, lol. But I hate to waste all that soft fur. Being from show lines her coat is like a cloud. All white fuzz with big ears and red eyes, that's how she got her name.
KimitsuKouseki
Well-known member
The video I linked you I'm not even speaking, I was in the middle of plucking her cause her babies kept climbing on her back and were causing mats. I wouldve waited a bit more otherwise. When she turned into goo I found it so funny I had to film it and thats where the video came from. But you can see how I'm basically randomly picking at her fur and not pulling too hard and it comes by itself.
I'm creating a new breed for fun, once I start getting my target looks I might register, or I might not. My bunnies will always be different from the standard, but thats cause this is what I want to make ^^ As for the Tan, over time the shorter fur will get long again, it's more an issue of getting the color in my genetics. I had a tan before, but he died
Right now I have too many rabbits so I'm waiting till things get back to normal before I buy another.
Not keeping any of Pipo's army of babies x.x Out of all my bucks he's the only one I plan to keep long time and the females I have other plans for. Happens.
I learned to spin this fall. I'd never done it before. And then I learned to crochet after that. You dont need a big machine if you're willing to take your time with it , just what's called a drop spindle.
Here's my thread about my process of learning to spin :
http://rabbittalk.com/learning-to-spin-t32325.html
Here's the videos that helped me most to learn to drop spindle:
Drop spindle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R0Lb1qA7kE&t=9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47alZZZoLT4
Everyone will tell you, you shouldnt make rolags out of angora fur and just spin from the cloud. I've tried and I'm not very good at it, so I still make rolags so far.
Here's how to make a rolag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSI_Alr5Lw
I just use 2 large pet brushes to do it and it works well.
I'm creating a new breed for fun, once I start getting my target looks I might register, or I might not. My bunnies will always be different from the standard, but thats cause this is what I want to make ^^ As for the Tan, over time the shorter fur will get long again, it's more an issue of getting the color in my genetics. I had a tan before, but he died
Right now I have too many rabbits so I'm waiting till things get back to normal before I buy another.Not keeping any of Pipo's army of babies x.x Out of all my bucks he's the only one I plan to keep long time and the females I have other plans for. Happens.
I learned to spin this fall. I'd never done it before. And then I learned to crochet after that. You dont need a big machine if you're willing to take your time with it , just what's called a drop spindle.
Here's my thread about my process of learning to spin :
http://rabbittalk.com/learning-to-spin-t32325.html
Here's the videos that helped me most to learn to drop spindle:
Drop spindle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R0Lb1qA7kE&t=9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47alZZZoLT4
Everyone will tell you, you shouldnt make rolags out of angora fur and just spin from the cloud. I've tried and I'm not very good at it, so I still make rolags so far.
Here's how to make a rolag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSI_Alr5Lw
I just use 2 large pet brushes to do it and it works well.
Aww! I'd just do the breeding for fun...too much politics otherwise. Hopefully you'll get afew really nice tempered babies out of all those extras! They just sound so neat! I have my doubts she'll ever turn into a "goo pile" I just don't think she has it in her. I may breed her down the line, or I may just rehome and try again. She can show, so someone would want her, and I have her papers, so someone should want her. i'll give it alittle longer though. Sure wish the breeder hadn't misdiagnosed the other one...perfect temperament. I was just so afraid of a male spraying in my house thet I passed on it. i'd be happy to give the extra fur to anyone who can use it btw.
We have English angoras but they're kept as a fiber herd instead of a show herd. If you're gonna show them, then the herd and coat maintenance is entirely different.
For show bunnies, you keep them in full coat, but usually only the first coat is the one the serious show folks use, I think. I also think they have the non-molting ones and will keep a coat on them for about ten months, but I could be entirely wrong since we don't show that much. Those are for the serious national shows, for the smaller local shows the standards aren't as high.
At shows, the wool on the angora carries more points than just about anything else. For an English angora, it should be free flowing and silky, not a cottony mat. Which is where the blower (or vacuum blowing on reverse) comes in. A blower can keep the coat open and flowing. A slicker brush can't get into the coat enough to do much of anything.
For our fiber herd, we use a long toothed steel comb to get down into the coat. We also have a pair of horse clippers for harvesting the wool, along with long pointy hair scissors and small embroidery snips as well.
On the show table, your angora should be in good coat with a minimum length of was it three inches? You don't get any additional points if it's over five inches and some of the national winners have up to ten inches of fiber on them.
They should be between five and seven and a half pounds. Wide nose, wide shoulders, a rounded back without the hips sticking out. Kinda like half a basket ball covered with fluff. The ears should be up and in a tight vee. Wool should cover their entire body except for their nose. The English angora is a 'compact' body shape bunny, not a loaf of bread bunny like some of the other angoras.
No white toenails or white marks on a colored bunny. Which is why BEW genes (Vienna gene) suck when breeding show EAs unless breeding for BEW. The Vienna gene causes mis-marked bunnies when planning to show EAs and it can hide for generations before popping up again. Very annoying. So for all bunnies carrying the Vienna gene, they should be marked VC (Vienna Carrier) on their pedigrees.
For diet, lots of fiber and high protein because of the wool growth. They need the fiber to keep any ingested hairs moving through their system and the higher protein because they grow their own body weight of hair about every five years.
Temperament in EAs is pretty important since they get handled a lot. It's one of the things we breed for. Wool quality first, then health and conformation, temperament, litter size, mothering ability, coat color (we have the bunnies for some specific colors of yarn) and how inbred they are to the rest of the herd since we've got some limited genetics and it's hard to import more.
The bunnies webpage, although the grooming page is still under construction. There is a picture there of an angora that didn't get groomed for about a year. She was brought in as a rescue and after grooming was much happier. http://hillsidefarmhawaii.com/
As for the angora wool, if it's in long spinnable lengths it's something that can be sold on Etsy, Ebay or to anyone who spins. We have several folks growing wool for us and we pay $5 per ounce for the wool they grow.
For show bunnies, you keep them in full coat, but usually only the first coat is the one the serious show folks use, I think. I also think they have the non-molting ones and will keep a coat on them for about ten months, but I could be entirely wrong since we don't show that much. Those are for the serious national shows, for the smaller local shows the standards aren't as high.
At shows, the wool on the angora carries more points than just about anything else. For an English angora, it should be free flowing and silky, not a cottony mat. Which is where the blower (or vacuum blowing on reverse) comes in. A blower can keep the coat open and flowing. A slicker brush can't get into the coat enough to do much of anything.
For our fiber herd, we use a long toothed steel comb to get down into the coat. We also have a pair of horse clippers for harvesting the wool, along with long pointy hair scissors and small embroidery snips as well.
On the show table, your angora should be in good coat with a minimum length of was it three inches? You don't get any additional points if it's over five inches and some of the national winners have up to ten inches of fiber on them.
They should be between five and seven and a half pounds. Wide nose, wide shoulders, a rounded back without the hips sticking out. Kinda like half a basket ball covered with fluff. The ears should be up and in a tight vee. Wool should cover their entire body except for their nose. The English angora is a 'compact' body shape bunny, not a loaf of bread bunny like some of the other angoras.
No white toenails or white marks on a colored bunny. Which is why BEW genes (Vienna gene) suck when breeding show EAs unless breeding for BEW. The Vienna gene causes mis-marked bunnies when planning to show EAs and it can hide for generations before popping up again. Very annoying. So for all bunnies carrying the Vienna gene, they should be marked VC (Vienna Carrier) on their pedigrees.
For diet, lots of fiber and high protein because of the wool growth. They need the fiber to keep any ingested hairs moving through their system and the higher protein because they grow their own body weight of hair about every five years.
Temperament in EAs is pretty important since they get handled a lot. It's one of the things we breed for. Wool quality first, then health and conformation, temperament, litter size, mothering ability, coat color (we have the bunnies for some specific colors of yarn) and how inbred they are to the rest of the herd since we've got some limited genetics and it's hard to import more.
The bunnies webpage, although the grooming page is still under construction. There is a picture there of an angora that didn't get groomed for about a year. She was brought in as a rescue and after grooming was much happier. http://hillsidefarmhawaii.com/
As for the angora wool, if it's in long spinnable lengths it's something that can be sold on Etsy, Ebay or to anyone who spins. We have several folks growing wool for us and we pay $5 per ounce for the wool they grow.
