Northern California Angora Guild: 9/26/21

Baby Aada and Auston

Two fat little buns were born in February to Aabel and Frieda. The pink one is the REW that grew up to be Aada and the beige one is Auston.

At around 4 weeks old, the colors are obvious.

Auston and Aada are the Easter models in April.

They are the 4th of July models. They are developing really well, and ... full of hopes to be the Best In Show potentials.

Aada Gets a Haircut

Aada is a beautiful young white doe, but ...

... she has a very bad habit. Can you see her bad habit? She likes to chew her own wool!

If there were shows, mama Betty would work the hardest to keep her coat and put her on the show table, but...

... it seems to be a losing battle trying to get her not to chew and waiting for the illusive shows to come back.

So Aada is getting a haircut!

Nothing left for her to chew, hope she'll find a different hobby.

She sure has a nice round body under the wool.

Hope she's happy now.

Invasion of the Turkey Vultures

I got up in the morning, heard flopping noises outside. On top of the 50-foot tree, there is this huge turkey vulture spreading its wing.

There are more than one to make so much flopping noise, here is another one.

Under the one with wing-spread, another one on the branch.

At the top of a redwood, another turkey vulture.

One on our antenna!

Another big one. What's going on? No clue. Turkey vultures are known to prefer recently dead animals, but we don't have any dead animals in our yard. It's really uncomfortable to see them perching on our trees. I tried banging on trash cans, turning on leaf blower, yelling at them, ... nothing worked. I had to leave home for an appointment, worried. I rushed back after the appointment in about 2 hours, thank goodness, they were gone. Nothing harmed, not the vulture, not the rabbits.

French Angora Texture

The Standard of Perfection describes the French Angora texture:

"Wool is to exhibit an abundance of guard hair that should protrude above the underwool. Underwool is to be heavily crimped. There should be sufficient underwool to balance the guard hair. Wool should be full of life, strong and fall free".

This is a first coat French Angora. Using the SOP wordings, the guard hairs are visible and underwool is crimped. When showing, it is common to receive a comment that the wool is too soft. Is it too soft? Not sure. Any animal, be Angora rabbits or Angora goats, or even sheep, their young coats are usually finer and softer. The first coat French Angora texture is no exception.

This is the wool from the same rabbit, photo taken of the second coat. The more matured coat/subsequent coats tend to have more guard hairs, and that the guard hairs are thicker than the finer guard hairs of the first coat. It's just a natural progression. Due to the way the SOP is worded, French Angora has a longer show life as the guard hairs are being treasured than being faulted as in English Angora.

English Angora Texture

When studying the Standard of Perfection, some of the concepts are easy to quantify, such as lenth of the wool. Some concepts have rules, such as the depth and width of the body, some concepts can be understood by feeling, such as density. The hardest concept to grasp is the texture.

English Angora texture is described as:
The wool is to have a silky texture and should be alive, healthy, and fall free - not parting over the back displaying a "flat" appearance. Guard hairs are to be evident in separating and protecting the underwood. Underwool should be crimped.

It's hard to get an English Angora to have the perfect texture, it is fortunate that currently one has an almost perfect representation. It's silky, airy, and full of crimp.

The above three photos were taken under the sun, shows all the great characteristics and also excellent color.

This is the same coat in the shade. Though color does not show as bright as under the sun, the crimp is so detailed. This picture is provided to aid the understanding of the concept of texture.