History
There are many theories about the origin of the Angora rabbit but nobody can really surely say what course the story took.
After WISCHER (1937) British seamen brought the long-haired rabbits (also known as silk rabbits) from southern Russia across the Black Sea to Europe, where they quickly found much appeal in England and France. WEISSENBERGER (1971) contradicts this view and explains sources (NIEHAUS), suggesting that the Angora rabbit was already known at about 1400 in England. As the long-hair factor also occurs in wild rabbits, what can be viewed for example in the collection of the Forest Academy in Eberswalde in the form of a gray-haired wild rabbit (shot 1888), it is quite possible that the animals were captured and domesticated in England. Here in the wild, however, the long-haired animals survive only very badly. As a result of rain and mud the wool felts very quickly, they are therefore less flexible and an easy prey for predators and thus be quickly selected.
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Whether these assumptions are correct, however, is unclear, so you can read in the corresponding Wikipedia article that Angora rabbits have been known for only about 300 years from England and SANDFORD, quoting a source from 1707, mentioned the Angora as a "White shock Turky Rabbit". WEISSENBERGER’s interpretation seems to me personally also very convincing, since he believes that there have already been laws at the time of Queen Anne (England, 1702-1714) to declare the export of products “grown” on English soil. Rabbit hides and rabbit hair or wool were listed among them. It is therefore assumed that the long-haired animals were bred for a while in England at that time.
In 1723 British seamen probably brought the first traceable animals into France (Bordeaux) in order to sell them for much money. How they smuggled the rabbits past the British customs into France remains also uncertain.
The first import to Germany (Franconia) occurred in 1777 by von Meyersbach from London, all the sources agree about that. After WISCHER it was a couple of very young rabbits, whether they were actually white animals, I could not find in any of the older sources.
Pastor F. Ch. P. Mayer from Oberneit took care of the propagation of the Angoras from Franconia. Very quickly he had “transplanted” animals in the various regions. He already had seven years after the young pair of rabbits found way into his house brought animals "... to Ansbach, to Vienna, Prague, to Saxony, Silesia, into the Hohenlohe, into the Ansbach and Bayreuth, and even to Holland ..." as he wrote in his French book "Anleitung zur Angorischen oder englischen Kaninchenzucht”, published in 1784.
This book contains some remarkable "experiences" of Mayer, which are still valid today. My absolute favourite is this slightly dramatic explanation why an Angora even as a young has to be “pared off the hair”: "... the animal does not show the hair at birth but four to six days afterwards; but then they start already to grow significantly, so that the animal three months after his birth, and in half of its usual size is already completely covered with ripe hair. They must therefore be taken at that time. For since nature produces new hair immediately, so these would with the former, in case of letting them stand, not only mix but also cause a speedy death to the animal in this condition because this confused mixture prevents the formation of bones, the nerves contract to the intestines and thereby accelerates his death ..." And it is true that, as described here, felted animals die because they feel too warm under the "fur” and they refuse food intake (themed "Why to ingest food/energy, if I already warm enough anyway?").
Over the next hundred years, the breed of Angoras was supported from governmental -royal and electoral- side because the value of the fine wool was recognized.
Thus in army divisions departments were formed, where volunteers were educated in rabbit breeding and keeping (near Magdeburg), in Prussia and Saxony high wool bonuses (16 pence per pound of wool for animals held by oneself) were paid and it was carried out research on how to mate foreign Angoras with the best local domestic rabbits in order to obtain animals with wool and in white colour. So there are records of how much offspring a local doe with an Angora buck brought (up to 36 descendants), how many had longer hair and what success the subsequent generations achieved. Because not only the real Angora wool was valuable but also the hair of "half-breeds" because it was a little longer than that of normal rabbits and thus well suited for the manufacture of hats.
Nevertheless WISCHER cites BREHM’s wildlife from 1877 in order that attempts to make the Angora native in Germany had failed, and in MEYER’S encyclopaedia of 1889 was still written "... It (the Angora rabbit) is not suitable for breeding in Germany ..."; despite that BAUER writes on his website the following -what matches with other sources-: "... according to literature in Bremen in 1874, a first rabbit show was held and interest in this species awakened. The first ever association of rabbits was founded on 12th April 1880 in Chemnitz, Saxony. The first show held by that club was in 1885. 5 breeds have been presented there. It was the Flemish Giants, French Lops, and the Angora, Silver and Russian rabbits. Julius Lohr therefor had prepared the first sample descriptions for these breeds. He is still today known as first German breeding judge. As mentioned, the Angora is one of the oldest if not the oldest breed of our rabbits. So it is also descended from the wild rabbit ... "(Source: Ulrich Bauer, www.angora.de, dated from 2010-03-09).
Thus the Angora rabbit was one of the first five "recognized" breeds in Germany and has already been fully established at this time in Germany.
In subsequent years, the Angora rabbit has not been bred for wool quality but for wool length, 25-40 centimetres were not uncommon. That changed with World War I, as the production of wool was again promoted. The same thing happened during the Second World War. According to DORN governmental and private Angora farms have been established and in 1941 only the German army divisions kept 25,000 Angora rabbits. After two world wars the breed suffered a decline, however, because the wool was no longer needed. In order to prevent the total collapse of the breed, measures have taken such as the establishment of an Angora stud book and the introduction of performance exams. "... This effort to improve performance of Angora rabbit led to an increase of the average wool yield of the tested animals of 330 g/year for bucks and 422 g/year for does in 1935 to 1243 g/year (bucks) and 1430 g/year (does) in 1993. German Angora rabbits are thus belong to the world's most productive animals of this breed. The economic importance of Angora wool in the GDR was still great but it came to a substantial fall in prices of Angora wool through the development of improved synthetic fibres, so that the breeding of Angoras in Germany today is a pure hobby ..."(Wikipedia, dated from 2010-03-09).
The Society for the Conservation of Old and Endangered Livestock Breeds added the Angora rabbit in 2002 to the Red List of endangered breeds of domestic animals. It stands today in Category I "highly endangered".
The breeding of Angoras in Saxony seemed somewhat better off because in an analysis of the breed rabbits by the Saxon State Institute for Agriculture in 2002 the following results were noted:
"Currently, the Association of Saxon Rabbit Breeders has 8,370 organized rabbit breeders. These breeders care for a total of 10,300 farms. Of these, 1.2% thus about 120 Angora rabbitries are to be recorded in Saxony yet. A lot only have small stocks of old tradition or as second breed so that actually only 33 active breeders are actively participating in shows. Of the 33 represented on shows 17 members are organized in the Angora Club of Saxony.
On a show of the Angora Club of the Free State of Saxony in Oberlungwitz in 2001 9 breeding groups and 37 individual animals of White Angoras were exhibited. In addition, a breeding group and six individual animals of the black colour variety, two individual animals in blue and three pointed.
The results of the evaluation of Angoras were superb. Thus alone with the White Angoras 6 times the mark Excellent and 10 times Brilliant could be administered and a further 20 times the mark Very Good was awarded. Even with the Blue Angoras Brilliant was awarded once.
A high breeding level of the few remaining Angoras is therefore still detectable."
My conversation with Siegfried Sauer (Feb. 2010) let not expect much good for the German Angora rabbit. Although there were still some breeders in Germany (60 really active in Germany), the stock would continue to fall. He mentioned as reason the absolute lack of young breeders in the Angora rabbit breeding. After his calculation all these active breeders have more than 50 years of age, half of them are even over 70 years and it is foreseeable that these same half in the next five years probably have to give up their breed. So it is the task of the younger generations to assure the survival of these remarkable and historically very interesting rabbit breed. Should we not meet this challenge, the work of many generations before us will have been totally useless and a big piece of our heritage lost!
