Holland Lop

Holland lops are a breed of rabbit originating in the Netherlands. The breed was recognized by the Netherlands' Governing Rabbit Council in 1964 and the American Rabbit Breeders' Association in 1979. They are popular house pets, known for their sweet temperament and non aggressive behavior, though they retain a certain dog like tenacity.

History

This breed marked its beginning when Dutch rabbit breeder Adrian de Cock sought to combine the best qualities from two distinctively different rabbit breeds, the French Lop and the Netherland Dwarf, into a new breed.

In the winter, de Cock bred a white Netherland Dwarf doe to a French Lop buck, but obtained an undesirable litter. Unsatisfied, he decided to switch the genders in the breeds, breeding a French Lop doe and a Netherland Dwarf buck. The resulting litter of six, however, all possessed normal, erect ear carriage.

Subsequently, in 1952, de Cock took a doe from the litter of six to breed with an English Lop buck. Producing five young of mixed ear carriage between lopped, erect and half-lopped. As the lone fully-lop-eared doe was deemed too aggressive in nature, it was not subjected to further breeding and a half-lopped doe was instead bred with a buck from the original litter of six. In turn, the does from the original litter were bred with the bucks from the second litter. The resulting lopped young were selected from the litter and interbred with an emphasis on French lop characteristics (in order to compensate for the infusion of the English Lop during the breeding process). de Cock soon had a group of Holland Lops weighing between 2.5 to 3 kilograms. By January 1964, he bred the Holland Lops to a more desirable weight of less than 2 kilograms and presented four such specimens to the Netherlands Governing Rabbit Council, where the Holland Lop was recognized as a new breed. Soon thereafter, Aleck Brooks, founder of the Holland Lop Rabbit Specialty Club brought the breed to the United States in 1976 where they were subsequently recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders' Association in 1979.

Physical features

The Holland Lop is very popular and well-liked by many rabbit enthusiasts, pet owners and breeders, because of its compact size and attractiveness. It ties as the smallest breed of the lop-eared rabbits with the American Fuzzy Lop with an ideal weight of 3.0 - 4.0 lbs (1.6 kg) for showing in American Rabbit Breeders' Association sanctioned shows. Their stocky, muscular-appearing body, is characterized by broad shoulders, deep chests, and short thick legs. The most common colors attributed to Holland Lops are tortoise shell, broken tortoise shell, broken black and black, broken orange, as well as blue eyed white and ruby eyed white. The Holland Lop shares a color guide in the ARBA Standards consisting of well over twenty colors with the fuzzy lop. Holland Lops are popular among new rabbit owners for their "loppish" ears and round faces and they make good pets for children. Holland Lops have a gentle nature. These rabbits make great pets. They make good indoor or outdoor pets but beware that if kept indoors you will have to take precautions such as covering electrical wires, removing poisonous houseplants and making sure that your rabbit is safe from other household pets.