My name is Franziska Sprenger, and one of my passions is preserving the rabbit breed English Lop!
But let’s start at the very beginning …
I have been a pedigree rabbit breeder since 2000. I began my breeding career with the Sachsengold breed and, as a junior breeder, also showed successfully at the local shows. Eleven years later I saw an English Lop in a rabbit magazine and was thrilled. I had never seen this breed at a local or regional show before. Terms like “Red List” and “conservation breeding” were also unfamiliar to me back then. I started my first research and tried to track down breeders. I had set my heart on the blue colour variety – which turned out to be one of the rarest at the time.
In a roundabout way, in 2012 I got hold of two blue carriers. This means that these foundation animals had blue ancestors in an earlier generation and still carry this colour deep in their gene pool. So I started my English Lop breeding with a black buck and a grey-and-white doe. And lo and behold, in that wildly colourful litter of black-and-white, grey-and-white, grey and yellow youngsters there really was a blue one – the beginning of my breeding of blue English Lops. Incidentally, the Sachsengold rabbits held their own alongside the English Lops for another year before they were finally “cuddled out” of the shed. I have stayed loyal to the blues to this day, and now I also breed blue-and-white and white.
In the same year (2012) I also started training as a judge. I really enjoyed the training, and in my group I had wonderful colleagues who supported me brilliantly during (and even after) my training. The 3 years of training flew by, and in 2015 I passed my judge’s exam. Further voluntary roles followed, such as secretary of my club, secretary of the Thuringian judges’ association, chair of the district association and 3rd spokesperson of the international IG Englische Widder, the interest group for English Lop breeders.
For work reasons, I had to move from Thuringia to Bavaria. Unfortunately, this meant giving up some of my voluntary roles. I left my judges’ group (Jena) and moved to the Bavarian judges’ association (Upper Franconia South group). There I am still active as a judge and judge all rabbit breeds. I am still 3rd spokesperson of the international IG Englische Widder.
This website is not a place to sell or place animals. Its main purpose is to provide information about breeding and keeping English Lop rabbits, and in particular to give newcomers to the breed a useful overview and the odd tip for handling this endangered breed, which is so worth preserving.