Angora rabbits

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White angora rabbit
Angora rabbits, English breed direction
Angora rabbits
Shorn angora rabbit

The Angora rabbit is a medium-sized, long-haired rabbit breed weighing around 3.5-5 kg, from whose wool the angora fiber is made.

features

The fur of the angora rabbit is transformed into a constantly growing wool , which is sheared regularly (in Germany four times a year) and can be processed industrially. Large tufts of hair on the ears are characteristic of the breed. Angora rabbits come in different colors, the most common being the albino , white color.

Together with the fox rabbits , the dwarf rabbits Fuchs and the Jamora forms the Angora rabbit in the classification of the Association breed German rabbit breeder the Department of Longhairs.

The Angora rabbit got its name from the Turkish province of Angora ( Ankara ). Even if the origin of the Angora rabbit from Asia Minor is not excluded in the literature , it seems more likely that the name is derived from the long-haired Angora goat . Earlier names of the breed in Germany were among other things silk hare , Kashmir rabbit or plucked hare .

The long-hairedness of the Angora rabbit is due to a mutation; the long hair factor is v (normal-haired V) according to the German symbolism, and l (normal-haired L) according to the international (English) symbolism. Long hair is inherited recessively compared to normal hair; see main article: Genetics of the Domestic Rabbit .

history

Angora rabbits have been known from England for about 300 years . Sandford cites a source from 1707 in which Angora rabbits are mentioned as "White shock Turky Rabbit". The opinion sometimes expressed in the literature that English sailors brought these rabbits with them from the Black Sea in 1723 and offered them for sale in the port of Bordeaux are doubtful. The first import to Germany took place in 1777 by von Meyersbach to Germany ( Franconia ). The Angoras he introduced are said to have been albinos. The Angoras spread from Franconia, particularly encouraged by Pastor F. Ch. S. Mayers from Oberneit, to other areas of Germany and the Netherlands . At that time, Angora breeding was promoted by government agencies, especially in Prussia and Thuringia, for example, a factory for processing angora wool was set up in Buttstädt with the help of Goethe . However, the efforts do not seem to have been of lasting success. Dorn cited e.g. B. the 2nd edition of Brehms Tierleben from 1877 that the attempts to make the Angora rabbit at home in Germany had failed; this is also repeated in the third, "completely revised edition" from 1890. It must have been a misjudgment, however, because it was one of the breeds shown at the first rabbit show in Chemnitz in 1885 and is also included in the first evaluation provisions written by Julius Lohr .

In the years that followed, great importance was attached to hair length in breeding Angora rabbits. Up to 25 cm were required in the standard, animals with 40 cm hair length and more were shown. The quality and industrial utilization of the wool were not in the foreground at that time. This changed with the outbreak of the First World War, when the production of angora wool was strongly promoted. After World War I, the breed suffered a decline as the wool was no longer in demand. In order to stop this collapse, the Reich Association of German Rabbit Breeders campaigned for the establishment of an industry based on Angora wool. The breeders themselves founded the "Angora-Wollverwertungs eGmbH" in Leipzig . During the Second World War, angora breeding was promoted again and, according to Dorn, state and private angora farms were set up. According to him, the German army agencies alone kept 25,000 Angora rabbits in 1941.

The breed also declined after the Second World War, but this ended a short time later with the establishment of the Angora Herd Book in 1948 and the introduction of the station test for Angora rabbits in Kiel-Steenbek (Prof. Martin Tegtmeyer ) and Halle . These efforts to improve the performance of the angora rabbits led to the fact that the average wool yield of the animals tested rose from 330 g / year for bums and 422 g / year for rabbits in 1935 to 1243 g / year (bumpers) and 1430 g / year ( Rabbits) increased in 1993. German Angora rabbits are therefore among the most productive animals of this breed worldwide. The economic importance of angora wool was still of great importance in the GDR, but the development of better synthetic fibers led to a sharp drop in the price of angora wool, so that the breeding of angora rabbits in Germany is now a pure hobby.

In 2002 the Angora rabbit was put on the Red List of Endangered Pet Breeds by the Society for the Conservation of Old and Endangered Pet Breeds. Starting in the 1980s, an intensive breeding of Angora rabbits was established, also based on German breeding material. In 1989, China produced 9,000 tons of angora wool out of 10,000 tons worldwide. In Germany only the wool yield of the breeding animals accrues; the volume is estimated at less than 5 t / year.

Similar races

Other longhair breeds are the fox rabbit , the dwarf fox rabbit that Jamora and Satinangorakaninchen. In the former breeds, in contrast to the Angora, the hair is subject to the seasonal hair change. The satin angora rabbit also changes hair regularly, but it is not dependent on the season. The change takes place up to four times a year. However, the satin angora rabbit needs human support when changing hair, otherwise it will become matted. The Angora rabbit was used to outbred the fox rabbit, and it was probably also involved in the creation of the White New Zealander . In other countries, types of Angora rabbits are sometimes bred that are less selected for economy and wool yield than the German Angora rabbit.

literature

  • W. Schlohlaut: The big book of the rabbit. 2nd Edition. DLG-Verlag, Frankfurt 1998, ISBN 3-7690-0554-6 .
  • JC Sandford: The domestic rabbit . 5th edition, Blackwell Science, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-632-03894-2 .
  • F. Joppich: The rabbit. VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1967.
  • FK Dorn, G. March: Breed rabbit breeding. 5th edition. Neumann-Verlag, Leipzig / Radebeul 1981.
  • A. Brehm, E. Pechuel-Loesche: Brehms animal life. 3. Edition. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1890. (Mammals, second volume, p. 640: "Attempts to make it at home in Germany failed.")

Web links

Commons : Angora Rabbits  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Von den Englischer Ropfhaasen  - Sources and full texts