What is a fuzzy holland? Does being a fuzzy matter?

To answer this question we have to go back in time to to the 1950’s, specifically 1952. Dutch breeder Adriaan de Cock in a effort to produce the broken holland lop crossed solid Holland Lops with the english spot. This successfully introduced the broken variety but it presented one issue -the wrong fur type. Holland Lops are supposed to have rollback fur, but these broken Holland Lops had fly back fur. To fix this problem they needed to introduce another breed. But which one?

After much discussion and debate over which breed would be the best to breed in to fix the fly back fur, they decided on the French Angora. French Angoras have wool instead of fur but they would neatly fix the problem. So in the 1970s French Angoras were bred into Holland Lops. Now they had broken Holland Lops, solid Holland Lops and rollback fur Holland Lops. Sounds perfect right?

It was not perfect. Introducing the wool gene may have solved the initial problem but it came with a price-fuzzy Hollands.

Fuzzy Hollands happen when you get two copies of a wool gene. This means that both parents are carrying a copy of the wool gene and most breeders would agree that you shouldn’t breed the same pair again if you get a fuzzy. The tricky part is that you could breed the same pair of rabbits 99 times and on number 100 you get a fuzzy.

Fuzzy Hollands are only a problem in Holland Lops because their fur is longer than an inch. This disqualification means that they can’t be shown in a ARBA show.

So what do you do with a fuzzy Holland?
Most serious SOP breeders sell them as pets, although occasionally they will sell one with exceptional type to a AFL (American Fuzzy Lop) breeder.

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