Spinning Angora Rabbit Fur

Hello,
I've been caught again, proclaiming things I didn't stick to. Finished with angoras? It would seem not.
I purchased a pair of beautiful English angoras from Betty Chu (from California) at the Louisville ARBA national convention. These 2 babies are beautiful and such little sweethearts. I'm thrilled. Plus each has very good density and the type of silky coat that every angora owner dreams of when they are getting into angoras. Here is the little boy.

I met Betty there and I must say she is one of the most generous, gracious breeders I have ever met. She is so willing to share her knowledge of rabbits, showing and even shared some new spinning techniques with me. I also met some people from the various lists that I had only "met" on line in the past. I met Christine Oliver, and Janet Gruber, also angora rabbit breeders and fiber enthusiasts. Sadly, I was only there for Saturday night, but I know that Betty won BOB, English angora, plus some other wins in the various classes. Congratulations, Betty!

When I got my new English boy, Clover, my intention was to breed the best of my English/German crosses to him and soften their coats up as much as possible. But Betty had some does available too, so I got a beautiful fawn girl, Honeysuckle. They are simply too nice not to breed them to each other and produce high quality English rabbits here. I've never shown before, but if my babies are as nice as these 2 bunnies are, I might hit the show table in the near future.

Betty was generous enough to have full coats on each of them, and I have some beautiful fiber to spin from them already. I've been comparing their fiber to English angora that I already had here, and it is definitely silkier.
Here is the little girl's momma's picture from Betty's blog
http://bp2.blogger.com/_ZB2o30Q9w-g/RiLjTj98mOI/AAAAAAAAACc/MzHQejn1eaM/s1600-h/F1_1+(2)+for+Cow+Palace.jpg (in case the photo insertion from another website does not work)
She looks very very much like her momma. She's a pretty big girl, but the little buck is small, so I don't think we are in danger of going too big. She eats like there is no tomrrow too! So nice to see in a rabbit. I'm just as pleased as I can be with these 2 bunnies. It looks like the rest of my Germans will be placed now, if I can find them a home.

Sadly, the German cross little boy that has all the great density and crimp has a dirty bottom.
http://www.germanangora.net/ssaved/angora&cormo.htm The sample in the picture was from his shoulders at 8 mo. So it was here to stay, not just the baby coat, which is normally more crimpy than the adult coat. I'm really sick about this because his texture was almost as nice in it's own way as English. (Notice almost no harsh guard hair). I will clip him down really well and see if it happens again. If it does, much as I love his texture, he will be removed from my breeding program. Perpetuating dirty butts is a huge disservice to the angora rabbit community and I will not do it.

Have a great Holiday season, everyone!