Rabbit Show

Today A2 & I attended a rabbit show together.  These days, costs being what they have become and age creeping up on me, I don't get to as many shows as I usually do.  I do, however, make a strong effort to get to the ones that are the closest and biggest.  This was just one such show.  I'm very glad we went too.  I had multiple objectives: find A2 a decent doe for her Dutch buck, move out the hairy abomination that's been parasitically living in the rabbitry for too long, find loving homes for the kittens, and look for Hares.  This was A2's first official rabbit show.

We arrived in good spirits, unloaded the car and cheerfully walked the long distance back to the showroom and set everything up.  I helped A2 clean up her boy (Boo Blue) and trim his nails.  She then spent the better part of the show morning walking around with him cradled upside-down in her arms introducing him to everyone!  Turns out he really is the PERFECT buck for her!!  After maybe 15 or 20 minutes a group of youngsters came over and mentioned they had some Dutch rabbits available.  A young man brought over a nice, semi-young (about a year) black doe who just happened to have been bred by the same person from whom A2 picked up the buck at the previous show of this venue.  The price was right, the doe was a good match, and the original breeder agreed to forward the pedigree to A2 next week.  So the exchange was conducted and "Angel" was added to the carrier. 

Things went fairly smoothly for most of the morning, registering rabbits, tagging young Sugar (the jr cavy I was showing) and getting everything setup.  I helped A2 make sure she got her rabbit onto the table... but so did about 3 or 4 other people too!  It's always nicer when others help out.  I learned a great deal about judging Dutch watching the 3 shows today.  I hope A2 learned some as well.  A2 walked away with 2 BOSV wins and 1 BOSB!  A very good result for her first show.  Interestingly a different rabbit won BOB in each show.  I find that to be a very bad indicator because it means each judge felt that different aspects of the rabbits was more important.  It makes it harder to learn what exactly to look for in the show animals when the judges wish-wash like that.

By the end of the show day, we had won 3 items from the raffle (a Comfrey plant for me and a blue Mini-rex jr buck, a pair of dream catchers for A2), found the doe for A2, each won in our show classes (I won BJOB in both cavy shows), I sold one of my hats, re-homed 2 of the kittens, put the fluffy abomination in the raffle, and found someone in the showroom with Hares!  A good day in all... tiring, but fun.