I don't keep or breed angoras myself, but I have received a lot of email lately (several from people on the FML) concerning the origin of the angoras. This is what I've also posted to the angora mailing list. The following text can be found at www.ferret-universe.com/angora.html: >The angora began as a result of a mutation in breeding on a fur farm >back in Sweden. The breeder sold this >entire stock of ferrets to Soren >Thingaard who has continued to breed them for several generations to >improve >their temperament (as the original breeder bred his ferrets to >hunt rabbits). This is not entirely true. The last two days I ve been doing some research on angoras here in Sweden, and this is what I ve come up with (no absolute truths, only what I ve heard from other people): There was a breeder in Scotland who had ferrets with longer hairs on their hind legs and rear part of the body. Some of these ferrets were sold to a large scale breeder in Norway (maybe fur farm, don t know), who after some breeding managed to produce angora ferrets. It is likely to believe that this breeder practiced repeated inbreeding to manifest the angora fur attribute. It is also likely to assume that this is were some of the bad traits (at least the breeding problems) were acquired, because ferrets that came from this breeder apparently had breeding difficulties, both males and females. There was a high rate of jills not nursing their young and hobs unable to perform. Two breeders in Sweden (maybe more) imported these Norwegian angoras. One, as far as I know, failed breeding the angoras. The other was a large scale breeder (fur farm, not hunting ferrets), I will call him XXX. XXX bred the angora jills to polecat hobs. The kits produced was given to surrogate, polecat jills. These kits showed a higher breeding ability than that of their angora birth mothers. Ferrets from XXX apparently have nose hair. At one point, XXX sold his entire stock to Soren in Denmark. (XXX might continued angora breeding even after this however, I m not sure. I know for certain he continued breeding ferrets large scale after some time.) XXX also exported ferrets to YYY, who then were small scale breeders in the US. YYY later moved to Sweden where they currently live. In Sweden they continued some angora breeding with the XXX-line of angoras) and may have exported to the US. Soren continued breeding the XXX-angoras. From what I hear, he likes to market himself as the only breeder of true angoras. He is allegeably in favour of nose hair, claming it to be a trait of TRUE angoras. However, the ferrets that Soren breeds is merely one line of probably several lines of angoras (of which most originate from XXX and the Norwegians), and obviously, his angoras are not in any sense truer than any other angoras. He seems to be the only large scale breeder at the moment though. Most breeders here in Sweden who bought and bred angoras have had unsatisfactory results (to say the least, in some cases). For that reason there are few people breeding angoras in Sweden now. The majority seems to believe angoras should be banned at this point. It may actually come to this. I have just heard that the Swedish Board of Agriculture, www.sjv.se, is about to launch an investigation concerning the possible ban of breeding angora ferrets in Sweden. If a ban is approved, I can only say I think this is an unfortunate course of action. Like I have stated before, I do believe the bad traits of angoras can be out bred, if given the chance. I m NOT in favour of creating different breeds in ferrets though (longer fur is not a different breed of course). An important thing to remember when breeding animals is that breeding to create new and drastically different characteristics (such as colour and fur type) will inevitably create SOME problems. To manifest a certain attribute you will usually have to inbreed more or less, and naturally occuring mutations can also carry unwanted qualities. A note on angora vs. polecat regarding size etc (in Sweden): The Norwegian angoras have a body similar to that of the polecat. Angoras from XXX are more robust, and has a shorter body. Many angoras (but certainly not all) have narrow faces, both jills and hobs. Angoras are NOT larger compared to Swedish polecats, but apparently US polecats are smaller from what I ve been told. Compared to Swedish polecats, angoras are not in any way more intelligent, rather the opposite it seems in some lines, and they are not more active either. Please remember that there are individual differences of course. I m sure there are angoras in Sweden that are more intelligent and active. I hope you will find some of the information useful, and I m sorry if this was a lengthy post. Marie [Posted in FML issue 3353]