Best In Show!!

This past weekend was the Kansas State Convention in Hutchinson.  With the ARBA Convention being in San Diego, there was a larger than usual entry – 1600 pre-entered and over 1700 on the day of the show.  My rabbits travel very well, so I took a gamble and entered my Convention show team in both Friday’s specialty show and the all-breed on Saturday and Sunday.

I did OK in the specialty show, winning BOV Black with a doe named Luxury and BOSV with a junior buck.  Bob won BOB with a beautifully colored Steel Sr. Buck and BOS with a Blue Jr. Doe.  After the show I headed home to put finishing touches on the banquet decorations.  Karen and I volunteered to do them last year and had fun making them from crocks, nestboxes, travel cups and other “useful” rabbit supplies.

Saturday morning the Dutch were judged in the all-breed.  I was excited to win BOB with Roxie, she is my favorite show rabbit right now.  After the show we decorated for the banquet and with several people helping it went quickly.  The supply decor went over well and it was fun to send most people home with a door prize.  Later on was one of the best parts of the weekend…the notorious room party during which a few of us suffered flying pumpkin injuries!

Sunday morning came early, and I decided I needed to sleep rather than show pigs.  I did get there in time to enter the Mini Rex specialty.  Best in Show was finally called around noon, and I got Roxie ready to go up.  As she sat on the table and I looked at her from a distance I noticed how much she’s primed since her last show a couple weeks earlier.  She got a long, hard look the first time, then she and the Havana got a second look.  And then…she was announced as Best in Show!!!

 

Needless to say, I was very excited!!  This was my first Best in Show win with the new herd, and it happened at one of the largest shows we’ve had in awhile.

I didn’t think it was possible to be any more excited about San Diego, but I am!!  She’ll be getting the royal treatment until then…California, here we come!

Summer flashbacks and fall shows

The summer show slump is over and all of a sudden, it’s fall!  The rabbits are loving it.  Me…not so much.  I like long days and warm weather!

I did get a reprieve from the cool weather when I went to Bakersfield to judge the Kern County Fair at the end of September.  It was over 100 a few days in a row, and since we never got a real good summer here, I liked it!  I judged rabbits for two days and then showmanship, and had a great time!

The rabbit committee, led by Armando, did a great job and took very good care of me.   I was also well-fed, with a trip to In-n-Out and my introduction to Basque food.

I had never even heard of Basque food until the day we went.  We do have quite a selection in Wichita, but this is one cuisine we’re missing!  The food itself isn’t all that different, but the presentation is.  Everything is family-style and served in several courses.  Everyone orders an entree, and included in the price is all the rest of the dishes.  The first course that comes out has a cabbage soup, beans and hot sauce and is served with bread.  I learned to mix beans and hot sauce into the soup, it sounds a little strange but is actually very good!  Next is salad, stewed tomatoes with peppers and onions, and pickled beef tongue (this I did not try!).  Next were green beans and fries, followed by our entrees.  I had been advised to pace myself, and I just made it with enough room for my shrimp scampi!

Food aside, I had a great time at the show meeting everyone.  I picked a gorgeous Mini Lop Best in Show and a Dutch Reserve.  All of the kids showed great sportsmanship and were very polite.

The next weekend was my first show of the fall.  The Kaw Valley club celebrated their 50th anniversary with a double show.  I still have several who are young or coming into fur, so I only took 4.  3 were young and fuzzy, but one 5 month old black doe was so well-developed that I entered her as a senior.

Briony’s Rocks Off (aka Roxie) is a Tumbling Dice daughter (see previous post) out of Hawkeye’s Eyecatcher.  It was her first time out, and she surprised me in the first show by winning Best of Breed!

As you can see, her BOB award was a towel.  The only thing I didn’t like is that there was only one.  (What rabbit geek wouldn’t like a Best of Breed towel set??)

That afternoon, Roxie took BOS in the B show to a very handsome Black Sr. Buck of Rick’s.

Convention is coming up fast…I’m crossing my fingers that some hold coats and others molt quickly!

One hot mama!

I got to attend a triple show in Duncan, OK this weekend as just an exhibitor.  I love judging, but I REALLY love breeding and showing my own rabbits,and have found that I’m a better and happier judge when I get to alternate judging trips with showing my own.  Not to mention I have to put my money where my big mouth is

I don’t have a lot to show right now, as several of them are too young or too molty, so I only took 4.  Two senior bucks, a junior doe, and Tumbling Dice, who is 2 1/2, weaned a litter Sunday the 14th, and looked awesome!  I’ve quit referring to her as “retired,” since every time I think she’s done with shows and breed her again, she comes back looking just as gorgeous as ever.  I wish I could take all the credit for this, but I tapped into some pretty good bloodlines when I bred her and she comes from lines of easy keepers.  Almost all of her relatives I’ve raised and kept are the same way.  Their “conditioning” consists of being fed good pellets, given clean water, and being kept as clean as I can.  The reality is, I’m lazy efficient, and I don’t want to have to do any more work than is absolutely necessary to have really hot show rabbits.  So I keep the ones who do it themselves.

In the C show Friday night there was a large turnout, as some youth breeders had entered in open.  Dice won BOV Black.  Storm took BOV Blue and KS19 was BOV Steel.  BOS was TK, a black buck owned by Trevor, a youth breeder from Texas and entered by his mom Laura.  He’s done very well with him (2 BIS wins!) but is cutting his herd back.  I couldn’t pass him up, so I bought him that night.  And Dice again proved she’s the Heidi Klum of the rabbit world as she won Best of Breed!

Saturday was a double show.  In the A show Dice took BOB again, TK was BOSV Black (now in my name) and KS19 was BOV Steel and BOS.  The numbers in the shows dropped as a couple exhibitors went home.  In the B show Storm took BOSV Blue for his third leg, and KS19 again took BOV Steel.

It’s been a pretty successful couple of weeks, I’ve managed to grand three rabbits (Factory Girl, Storm and KS19) along with just kicking back and having fun with rabbit friends.

Our barn has had a major upgrade since we’ve finally gotten wired for electricity!!  You know how it goes, you don’t always know what it is your rabbit friends do for a living, so we had no idea that Mark was a master electrician.  After what we’ve been through, I insisted on a pro doing our wiring, and someone who is familiar with barns and animals is even better!  He and his family (Rachael and daughters Chelsea and Kassidy) came over last Wednesday and got us hooked up.  By now I can’t even imagine how we did it with just two drop lights!  We have eight long flourescent lights, ten outlets, and a working exhaust fan!  Of course, the new lighting only illuminates some of the cleaning I need to do.  But since I have so many outlets, I can just roll the ShopVac right down the aisle sucking up cobwebs, spilled feed and shavings.  Life is good!

Long time, no blog

I have been meaning to do an NDS blog for a long time, but it just hasn’t happened.  So here’s the recap:

We hosted NDS at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson.  We had a great turnout and everyone enjoyed the show and our facility!  I had been worried about being able to enjoy it, since I had knee surgery (with complications) on March 31.  I had told the doctor that I HAD to be up and around and off crutches for this show, and got a prescription for steroids just in time.  It swelled and was uncomfortable, but I managed with some help from my friends!

Friday night was the big night for the rabbits.  I hadn’t had a good fall and didn’t have much that I was really excited about.  The blue doe I had planned to enter in fur blew her coat, so at the last minute I threw in a little blue buck named Storm.  The fur class was going on at the same time as Midnight was competing in the Ladies Choice class, a fun class where any girl or woman enters a favorite rabbit and a winner is chosen by another breeder.  I kept going back and forth, and they both stayed on the tables.  Storm was sitting in the first place coop on the fur table, and Midnight was a favorite on the Ladies Choice table.  At the same time Midnight was picked Ladies Choice winner, his son Storm won Best Fur!  I was pretty happy with my little guys.

Saturday rolled around and nothing much interesting happened until the Blue Sr. Buck class.  Midnight had been feeling his oats (spraying Ronda across the face when she leaned down to say, “Hi, handsome!”) but behaved well on the judging table until he got put in the second place coop.  Sometimes I wonder how much they know what is going on!  Storm took 9th of 33 Blue Jr. Bucks.  I was pleased with this, he has a very obvious jagged saddle so it was an acknowledgement of his many other good traits.

Fast forward to this weekend…I have not been able to attend many shows this year due to my judging schedule and surgery, so was looking forward to our club’s show this weekend.  Most of my does are with litters and my juniors are too young to show, so I am low on show rabbits, but it went well.  Factory Girl was looking pretty nice after coming off a litter, so I decided to try for her 3rd leg.  She ended up taking BOB in the A show and BOS went to a steel buck of mine, Hooper’s KS19.

 

In the B show, I took BOS with Peter’s Morgan, a cute black doe out of a buck I sold, and Storm took BOV Blue. 

I’m getting ready for the Duncan show this weekend, and again lamenting my lack of show rabbits.  But there are a couple of brood does who are looking good after weaning litters…

The End of an Era

Clichéd, I know.  But I couldn’t help but feel a little sad when I took the last of my Tort Dutch to Jill and Ronda in Oregon last weekend.  I’d had Torts for the past 18 years, so not having any to look at when I got home was very strange!

I had a pet English Angora and was in 4-H in 1990 when my parents started to relent on the idea of a rabbit project.  (Little did they know what they were getting into!)  My mom, pragmatic soul she is, gave me a piece of paper on our annual State Fair trip and told me to write down any kinds of rabbits I liked so we could learn more about them and pick the right one.  My list was three long and looked like this:

1. Gray Dutch (blue)
2. Black Dutch
3. Brown Dutch (chocolate)

It was love at first sight!  Being a librarian, she had access to all sorts of books and brought home The TFH Book of Pet Rabbits by Bob Bennett.  The book did promote Dutch as pets, but my mind was already made up.  I read through it and scoured all the pictures.  The back endpapers was a photo of English Spots in their show coops, but in the top corner a golden, blazed face peeked in.  It was the most gorgeous rabbit I’d ever seen.  Not knowing the proper name, we called around looking for “Gold” Dutch and were eventually connected to Bob Bergene who had some Torts.  We made plans to go to his annual spring sale in May of 1991, shortly after my 10th birthday, to pick up my first Dutch.

We got there, and I searched up and down the aisles, in awe of all the gorgeous rabbits.  There was only one Tort left, a little mismarked buck.  And I do mean mismarked, he had a big drag from his neck onto his shoulder, a saddle that looked like a stairstep, a tied elbow, and a split stop!  I brought him up to the table, but my mom and Bob both tried to talk me into a black buck that I could show.  I agreed, and picked up the little Tort to take him back to his cage.  When I got there I noticed he was born on my birthday.  If you’ve never tried to convince a 10 year old that the one rabbit in their favorite color that was born on their birthday isn’t destiny, well, I don’t recommend it.  You aren’t going to win.

I must add here, in case you’re doubting Bob’s wisdom as a breeder, I didn’t know at the time that this little guy was very typey, had great color, and was extremely well bred.  I named him Forty-Niner (aka Niner) after my favorite football team.  Because I’d chosen him, I had to wait another year to show at the fair, but I didn’t care.

As it turned out, Niner having been born on my birthday was destiny.  A year and a half later, after losing my first tort doe, we made another call to Bob and purchased a tort doe who was Niner’s half-sister.  A little doe from their first litter was one of my two entries at my first ARBA Convention in 1994 in nearby Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Callie won Best of Breed and put a little girl from Kansas on the map.  I went on to raise some nice Torts who took many BOB and BOS honors out of Niner’s lines, and eventually expanded into blues and blacks.

Briony’s D19, aka Callie, 1994 ARBA Convention Youth Best of Breed

Over the years, my old Tort line diluted and kind of died out, since I had few to begin with, and after the fire in 2006 I had none left.  I quickly got some to start with, but mostly concentrated on the blacks and blues since I had something of my own to work with, and they took off.  Then the Chinchilla Mini Rex popped up.  I knew that something had to give, and that was my Torts.  I’ll always have a soft spot for them, and this is just a temporary break!

It sometimes amazes me the coincidences that bring single rabbits into our lives that end up leaving such an impact, although I don’t believe it’s ever truly coincidence but rather a plan by “someone” who knows better than we do.  Several years later Rick Lehmann walked up to me at a show to offer me little blue buck he didn’t have room for.  Sure, he was nice, but I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the pedigree and noticed he was born on my birthday.  That was McGrath, and I didn’t know it at the time, but he was one of the two bucks who would get me started the second time around.  Coincidence?  Maybe, maybe not. 

Always the Bridesmaid

For several reasons, I’m not going to make most of the spring shows.  So I was happy to get a little show fix this past Friday night at the Smoky Hills show in Abilene, KS. 

The Friday night show started out (I believe) as a few specialty shows.  Then it was decided to save money and get an all-breed sanction but only purchase specialty club sanctions for those breeds that had planned a specialty show.  And so, the floodgates opened!  I was originally hired to judge the Fuzzy Lop specialty but ended up with them, Mini Satins, Florida Whites, Thriantas, French and Satin Angoras, and some others.  At 12:15 AM I picked youth Best in Show.

Mini Rex were sanctioned, Dutch were not but I took some anyway.  Several of them were juniors who were just making the trip to get some table experience.  Amante won the Broken SB class against some good competition.  I was the only Dutch exhibitor that night, but Midnight took BOB and went on to take Reserve in Show.  This is his second RIS win and the third for me since this fall.  So close, and yet so far!

I didn’t make the Saturday show because (you guessed it) I was the bridesmaid in my grandma’s wedding.  I had contemplated leaving rabbits, but decided against it.  I hear there were several more exhibitors and around 50 Dutch that day!  The only other showing I will get to do before NDS is the Duncan show on March 13-14.

I don’t really mind being the bridesmaid in real life, but after so many near misses at shows, I’m ready for my special day with a BIS!  Although Midnight’s RIS was a nice win against good competition, since Dutch weren’t sanctioned and I was the only exhibitor it really counts for…a basket of chocolate and a brag.  As for me, I got to be part of my grandma’s special day, and see her happy with her new (and very sweet) husband.  As a bonus, I got a dress I’ll actually wear again, while poor Midnight had to settle for an ear rub. 

My First GC Mini Rex!

GC Briony’s Amante

(Crappy cell phone pic…sorry!)

The Sunflower RBA held its January “Fiesta” Fun Show this past weekend, and a good time was had by all!  Every year our club buys ARBA sanctions, arranges the building, and hires local judges for $1/head.  This is in case the weather ruins the show, which happened two years ago.  I judged the entire open show, all 80-some rabbits, after being towed out of my own driveway that morning while wearing a pirate costume.  The show always has a theme (hence the pirate costume) along with youth contests and activities. 

It was a smaller show, with only a little over a hundred rabbits per judge, so there was time for some fun classes and for each of the judges to be able to show our own rabbits.  The day started with the Best of the Best contest.  Each exhibitor can enter one rabbit, any breed, for $5 and the winners get a payback.  I put Midnight in (with not much of a coat) and he ended up taking 3rd out of 31 entries.  The white Satin that later won BIS also took this class.

There were only a few Dutch, and Midnight won BOB with Dandelion taking BOS.  There were more Mini Rex, and I was thrilled when my broken chin buck, Amante, took BOS.  He’s just a few days past the 6 month mark, so it was his senior leg.  For those who are not familiar with Mini Rex, brokens are one of (if not THE) toughest varieties.  Broken blacks and broken castors are frequent winners.  Chinchilla is a rare color, so broken chins are typically underdogs in their classes.  Which makes it all the more exciting when one wins!  It has been fun showing him this fall/winter and watching other judges’ reactions when they realize he’s a nice rabbit!

The show was a nice break from the cold weather drudgery.  I finally have a few litters due and will be ready to put some juniors on the table when spring finally arrives!

Confession time

Cloudy

21°F

RealFeel: -3°F

Winds: NNW at 25 mph

It’s January, and I know every other rabbit breeder in a temperate climate is thinking the same thing I am.  Only I’m going to say it:

I friggin HATE raising rabbits in winter!!

I realize that a lot of people live in places where it gets much colder than it does here, but hey, frozen crocks are frozen crocks and they really suck.  And a few live in places where 60 degrees is considered “chilly.”  I deeply envy them.

Like a lot of things about this hobby, it’s either dedication or insanity.  Mostly, I lean toward insanity.  Removing one’s coat to wrap around a nestbox of newborns while dashing into the house with only a T-shirt and jeans on is probably the act of a very unbalanced person.  And I’m sure that being seen standing outdoors on a frigid Kansas night with a howling north wind and subzero windchill while unzipping one’s coat, then coveralls, then pulling up one’s sweatshirt to put a chilled baby on one’s bare (and momentarily warm) tummy could result in some sort of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.

Sometimes I fantasize about not breeding anything from September to March.  I wouldn’t have to worry about does not being interested or going behind my back and not pulling enough fur for a nest that looked pretty good beforehand.  And it’s so nice not to have to keep litters in cardboard boxes in the spare room and run them in and out of the house to nurse.  As annoying as all this is, the prospect of having no juniors for spring shows (NDS included) is worse. 

So for this reason (along with basic good animal care and welfare, which I work hard to provide, but isn’t as exciting) I will lug hot water from the house three times a day (including my lunch break) to pour in frozen crocks.  I will waddle around like the Michelin Man in coveralls with a coat on top and a couple layers beneath to scrape out trays, and hope that I can get them all done while I can still feel my hands.  I will pull every prank I can imagine on my does to try to convince them it’s springtime.  Fortunately, Dutch bucks do not care. 

But still, I will keep on doing this (and hating it) with those spring shows in sight.  While I know that I should just congratulate myself for giving good care to my animals through the nasty weather, I really hope there is more reward for me than just that “participation” ribbon!

 

Oregon, Oklahoma and Litters

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of suitcases and shows!  On November 20 I left for Corvallis, Oregon.  This is always a fun trip for me since I get to see my Oregon Dutch breeder friends.  I judged a Dwarf specialty on Friday night with around 113 rabbits, and got to start with Dutch on Saturday in the double all-breed show.  I was impressed to see the quality across the varieties!  In the three shows, every variety except chocolate (none shown) won either a BOB or BOS award! 

Friday night’s BOB went to Gene Knieling with a Steel JD and BOS to Katie Kimmel (sp?) with a Black JB.  For the Saturday A show, I picked a Gray SD of Gene’s BOB and his Blue JB BOS.  Gene swept the B show as well, taking BOB with a Steel SD and BOS with a Tort JB.  Needless to say, he won the Triple Crown award for the weekend.

I stayed an extra day and got to spend some time with my good friend Jill Pfaff.  I was on house arrest (not allowed in the barn) before the show, but it was fun to go out and look through bunnies afterwards.  I brought home a super typey new black buck from Gene, his name is Knieling’s Kibuzi.  He’s out of a blue doe of Gene’s named “Kinky,” who accidentally (or so he claims) got a rather racy tattoo.  So I named the buck “Kibuzi” after my student worker told me it was the Swahili version of his mother’s name.

 I got home (with Kibuzi in tow) in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and was grateful that I only had one day of work standing between me and Thanksgiving break!  But there was no rest for the weary, since I had to do some barn cleaning and get ready for the Stephens County RBA show, aka “The Duncan Show.”  This was the last show of the year for me, and a couple of my favorite Dutch (Midnight and Dandelion) were days away from a full-blown molt.

In the Friday night show, BOB Dutch went to Chasing Shadows and Midnight Rambler took BOS.  The Mini Rex were up next, and after much back-and-forth deliberation, Amante won his broken junior buck class!  Winning any broken class against the breeders in that area is an accomplishment, but to do it with a broken chin is extra special! 

Saturday morning came early, and Dutch were the first on the table in the A show.  A couple more breeders had shown up so there was more competition.  Youth breeder Jessie from Oklahoma showed in open against her dad and the rest of us, and did very well, picking up BOSV Black with her buck Briony’s Jet.  BOB went to Chasing Shadows and a Steel JB took BOS.  On the Mini Rex table, Amante won his class for the second time!  I’m really excited to see how this little guy will do when he gets his senior coat!

I couldn’t stay for the B show, since I had to leave for a wedding reception, but was happy to hear that Jessie and Jet took BOB!

So I’ll be off the next few weekends, but litters will keep me plenty busy.  My first round is about 2 1/2 weeks old now, and I had a couple more born yesterday.  Factory Girl had her first early in the morning, and unfortunately tried a little too hard to clean them up since a couple are missing ear tips.  Including, of course, a beautifully marked Blue.  For some reason I was not winding down to go to bed last night, and when I strolled out to the barn to turn the lights off, saw that K05 had just kindled, a bit earlier than expected.

She hadn’t pulled enough fur and the babies were cold but not dangerously so.  I brought them in and warmed them up, first by putting them in Baggies and floating them in a bowl of lukewarm water, which I gradually heated up; and then by putting them on a heating pad.  They came around quickly so I rebuilt their nest.  Fortunately I had some extra fur on hand…for once, the weather this summer was stable and all of my seniors molted at once, so I saved the fur each time I brushed them out.   It has come in quite handy this fall and the does don’t seem to mind fur from other rabbits.

I’m sad that show season is over, but excited about the new prospects in the nestboxes and juniors to put on the table this spring!

Here, There and Everywhere

Last weekend I was all over the map; judging in Georgia and showing in Kansas.  The Georgia show went very well, the club took very good care of the judges and had a great facility!  There were 2000 entries in the double-plus-specialties show and the showroom could have easily held twice as many!

Meanwhile, I sent rabbits with my mom to our club’s (notoriously chilly) local show in Harper, KS, a single with a Mini Rex specialty.  I know how much of a hassle it can be to show two breeds.  I think Murphy’s Law of Rabbit Shows states that no matter what, your rabbits will ALL be on the table at the same time!  So I limited myself to one carrier containing 3 Dutch and my broken chin buck Amante.  I also got all my paperwork ready, loaded the grooming table, and I even let her take my car.

Of course, I asked for text updates which I checked between breeds.  After last weekend I was worried that there wouldn’t be much Dutch competition, but a few breeders showed up.  Midnight won BOB and a little doe named Dandelion had her first win with BOS.  Apparently Midnight was misbehaving on the table (besides his usual “look at me!” antics) and getting a little nippy.  I doubt he was actually being aggressive, but he’s outgoing and curious and likes to ”nibble.”  He hasn’t shown any signs of stress, but may be getting a little tired of all the trips.  I was told he also acted up during BIS judging, but whatever he did wasn’t bad enough to keep him from winning Reserve in Show!!

I was also thrilled to hear that Amante took BOSV Broken in the specialty show!  Showing Mini Rex is a little different for me.  Their fur requires a little more time to be show-ready, and most juniors who are showing well are 5 months or older.  This was Amante’s first show at a little over 4 months, so I was quite pleased with his placing.  He’s actually a few days older than some of my Dutch who have been showing well since early October!

My mom also had the task of checking on my 6 does due between Saturday and Monday.  I did try to be nice and made sure they were all experienced moms, and I told her if they did anything dumb it was their own fault.  All the litters had been born by the time my plane landed Sunday, so after coming home I went out to the barn to count babies!  K49, Virginia, Bud and Showgirl each had 5.  Tasha had hers on the wire, and Dice surprised me with 8!  Hopefully I will have some good NDS prospects in there!

My rabbits will get a rest this weekend since there are no local shows and I’ll be judging in Oregon.  The triple show in Duncan is Thanksgiving weekend, and will most likely be my last for the year.  Then I’ll have to figure out what it is normal people do on the weekends…