manselej
New member
Hello, I'm interested in raising wool fiber rabbits, that are also meaty enough (though I don't need to optimise size too much). Here in New Zealand I think we have just English Angora and Jersey Woolies. What I really want is French Angora. I really like the look of them with the clean face/feet, and the easy care reputation. I suppose I'm thinking about breeding my own wooly fluffle, starting with Jersey Wooly (false dwarf) and crossing with Rex to improve size while maintaining coat density. A second generation crossing should produce 3/16th Wooly and one 1/16th Wooly-Rex. I'm not sure if Rex coat gene modifiers will generally improve the wool on the woolies. And the wooly-rex could be quite interesting, possibly disastrous, possibly super marketable in itself. Anyway, it should be a really interesting experiment but might not be great for generating saleable fiber. Should I instead just make friends with the English Angora instead and select for good traits etc? Or a combination of approaches. Note that the calcivirus is a real risk here so I don't want to over-invest. And the English Angora I've seen are expensive!
