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› FORUM › HOUSE RABBIT Q & A › question about lop bunnies
when lops are born are their ears already down? as they start leaving the nest are their ears up and slowly go down or is it the other way around. I always wondered about that.
Good question! I have never seen a baby lop so I have no clue!
i believe i read that lops are born with their little ears up and they slowly flop over as they mature… maybe within the first couple of months.
Beka is correct, lops are born with up ears. They flop between 6 weeks and a couple of months. n___n Sometimes one goes before the other, too.
As others have said, they are born with small uppy ears. As they grow and their ears get bigger, they fall down. This process can take months, and some will drop only one ear and become “helicopters”. They become lops because of a genetic defect that makes some muscles either in the head or in the ears themselves weak, so they cannot hold their ears up. They are really funny looking when their ears are starting to fall, because they get these cute helicopter ears for a while, like they are trying to decide if their ears should go up or down.
“genetic defect”. that i did not know. thanks Osprey!
Actually it’s not so much a “weakness” as the fact that they have a wider head. Lops have a wider space between their ears than uppy-eared buns.
I’ve had my lop for long enough that uppy-eared bunnies look nervous to me now!
So WendyZ, the ears are farther apart which makes the muscles not able to hold the ears up? I read somewhere about breeders surgically removing the muscles to force bunnies to be lops *shudder*
Here are some pictures of baby lops from my breeder who I bought Smile and Rye from! (Smile and Rye are in all the pics) (They are the orange and white spotty ones, and the one pic is Rye as a baby when his ears were dropping around 3 weeks old!) By the time they were 6 weeks they had dropped completely!
Pic dates are:
Sept 16 2007 (they were born the 12th)
Sept 23 2007
September 27 2007
and October 21 2007
I picked them up around October 28 ![]()
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*SQWEEEEEEE* That’s soooo cute!!!!
i love that baby pic of Rye! the straight across ears are so cute. what kind of lops are they? i can never get my different lop breeds correct.
Our holland lop, Ernie, is currently in the helicopter stage. My understanding is that as the crown develops, the ears become further apart, which causes the lopping. Buns with small or undeveloped crowns will sometimes fail to lop.
omg his ears are sticking right out OMG HOW CUTE! ![]()
i want one! lol *nudges bofriend* lol
AAAAHHHHH!!!! *a’splodes from cuteness* OMG, Loppy, what adorable little babies! ^_^ What breed did you say they were again?
I love the ‘helicopter’ piccy. That’s like this one: (credits to cheezburger.com)
It might have something to do with the width of the head– I had always thought it was a genetic thing, but now that I think about it, Monty has a teeny weeny head and his ears and VERY sticky-uppy, but Humphrey has a bigger head and if you push down his ears they stay that way. n__n
Their ears are down when they are born and slowly go down with time. When I got my Baileys at 6 weeks he had one ear up and one down. He was beyond cute!!!!!!
My 2 are Registered Holland Lops ![]()
My 2 are Registered Holland Lops ![]()
Awww how cute! I love the pics that Lion Lop posted! These baby buns look like my Cookie’s long lost twins! Cute!
So I am guessing that lop bunny ears are generally longer than the buns with sticky up ears.
I sometimes gently push up Luey’s ears to see what he would look like with the sticky up ones. Cute both ways.
RondaGene – I do think our buns are long lost twins
lol…I love broken oranges
They are so beautiful…
DAWN – Hahahah, I do that with Smile and Rye a lot; and I push down my sticky-uppers to see if they would look cute as lops … long story short, they SO would. LOL.
Awwww tooo cute. I’m a sucker for the floppy ears. Luna’s did the aeroplane look also but now they’re fully flopped.
Awesome pictures!!!
Bailey was a lop, but she could actually control her ears and put them upright when she was really mad or felt alerted to something –

FLOP or NOT
(just chillin) (this is the “I’ll kick your butt missy, dont’ think I can’t!” look)
Luey has been putting his ears right back … what you call that … a back ear drop.
lol… i wouldn’t have wanted to cross paths with Bailey lookin’ like that. she certainly looks like she could hold her own.
that pic she reminds me of the flying nun bailey the flying nun hehee she’s so cute her.I luv her face
bunnytowne- that’s funny…flying nun bailey. That actually fits her a bit.
Beka – I know, the funny thing is she was soo loving and could sit for hours being petted and snuggled. She loved getting attention, and giving attention, but you mess with her stuff, and she’ll give you the old “ear bird” LOL!
^^ “ear bird” LOL!! ![]()
› FORUM › HOUSE RABBIT Q & A › question about lop bunnies
