MyRabbits' Warren and Cat Haven

[MyRabbits]

Well, I still haven't managed to get pictures of the bunnies posted, but at least we have names for the new white doe and black buck. The doe is Wendy, as in Peter Pan, and the buck is Harry Houdini. Yes, the buck is good at climbing out of his hutch.

We are sad today. Yesterday one of Harry's littermates died of enteritis. This morning it appears that two more are sick with it. Harry still seems to be fine, however. We send our love to Sheri who is struggling with the death of the one and care for the other two. That is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[fuzz16]

Not familiar with the disease but I hope it doesn't spread to her others and that Mr. Harry doesn't get it.

 

[MyRabbits]

Vets don't really know what ultimately is the cause of enteritis. It mostly affects rabbits below the age of six months. For the full first year their digestive tracts are undergoing a lot of changes in pH and in flora, etc. It is easy to disrupt the balance, whether by other disease or infectious agent or just ingesting something they should't have which then upsets the balance of "bad" and "good" bacteria in their gut, but it upsets the digestive tract enough that it freezes up -- stasis -- and the animals eventually die. Sometimes it can be treated with Critical Care, pedialyte and gas drops, but it is certainly quite painful for the rabbit to go through. The goal of the treatment is to stimulate the gut back into moving and digesting properly again.

I am very sad, as I learned another breeder friend was dealing with this issue with one of her kits and lost him last night, too. God bless all the little bunnies!

 

[MyRabbits]

Wow. It has been too long since I have written. Harry Houdini is now all grown up, making his senior weight and showing well. THe two whites we got last fall are also senior weight and showing well, especially London, our buck, who took Best Opposite Sex at the MARCS Flemish Giant specialty show at Lebanon. I was so proud of him, as he had gone through a very awkward adolescence. Also, since there is so little competition in the White variety of Flemish Giant, Whites rarely compete well for BOB and BOS.

Well, so far this winter, we have had two litters. Bessie and Guenther had five kits who are all now a little over 12 weeks. Dolly and Max had just two kits who are seven weeks today. All the kits are hitting outstanding weights according to our growth chart, and they all have such sweet and fun personalities. All have homes to go to also.

We had a third litter with Samantha and Guenther, but the two kits died of exposure. We have rebred Samantha and she is due about March 20th. I can hardly wait!

Back in December, in the National Federation of FLemish Giant Rabbit Breeders newsletter, Dolly was the number one ranked Flemish Giant in the country, based largely on her wins at Cortland and Mill Hall the previous weekend. Since she is nursing a litter now, I don't expect she will hold onto that position much longer. But we will enjoy it while it lasts.

Guenther continues to be my model stress buster. He just gets such an angelic expression on his face when I pet him that the expression simply dissolves away my own stress. I would love to patent it. I hear that in Japan they have rabbit cafes where people go to pet rabbits to reduce stress. I think Guenther and his kids would be great at that. Someday, when I retire, I think I want to open a rabbit cafe here and see if I can't get it off the ground.

It has not been that long since the Lebanon show, but I am finding it hard waiting for York to come along next week. Rabbit shows and all the fantastic friends I make there, are what really keep me going. I need another rabbit show injection.

 

[MyRabbits]

Wow. Has it really been that long since I have blogged here? I can't quite believe it.

We went to our last show for the season Fourth of July weekend, to Dickson, Tennessee, where they have an air conditioned showbarn and a double show plus Flemish Giant specialty show. I had hoped the specialty show would draw a lot of southern breeders of Flemish that I have hitherto not met, but the show was relatively small. Still, we had a good time showing and socializing with everybody else. Funny, but we walked away with many prizes -- some people must not have realized there were prizes and so didn't pick theirs up. The Show Secretary, as we were leaving, was desperately handing them out as gifts since they couldn't be reused, being dated with the date of the show. So we now have some very nice embroidered hand towels and also some beautifully handpainted larger refrigerator magnets. It was good fun.

The best thing about going to Tennessee was bringing home two new Flemish Giants from breeder Mark Griffith, who has won Flemish Giant Nationals for two years running now. The sandy senior buck is for friends who live in Pennsylvania and who will be coming to pick him up this weekend. It will be good to see them. The other is our new sandy junior doe, whom we have named Delilah. Delilah is simply delicious! She is both a promising showbunny and also a rabbit who really loves being petted and coddled all over her body. She is in the milking parlor now, as is Dolly, our hitherto biggest star, and the two of them are already competing for attention. It is very sweet.

Of course, rabbit breeding carries with it certain woes. In May, we had a small litter of sandies and the mother had no maternal instinct so we fostered the living two to a doe of a friend of ours in Baltimore. Unfortunately, both kits (both does) recently got the dreaded bloat. My friend was able to nurse the smaller of the two through it, but we lost the larger doe last night. I am very sad about that. This is a line we really want to do a lot with, and I believe the smaller one will be too small to make it worth breeding her. Anyway, my friend said we could go ahead and come up and get the smaller doe now so I am at least looking forward to having her added to the menagerie.

Yesterday, a Delaware breeder we know came to pick up the last of the does from our April litter of whites. We still have a buck left. Interestingly, while her husband does Flemish, she does Giant Angora and will be using this doe to cross some Flemish into her Giant Angoras, to gain some size advantage. I do hope she decides to show the doe a little too so we will get the chance to see how she is doing.

The next show is not until Mill Hall, in Pennsylvania, the Sunday before Labor Day. The shows help me get through me tedious job, and the summers just seem too long without them. I am already ready for that show! Can hardly wait.

 

[fuzz16]

been to long!!

congrats on the new flemmies, you should post some updated pictures up of the buns. you dont have enough in your blog!!!

i am sorry for your loss, its always sad when you loose a rabbit. specially babies or new moms.

 

[MyRabbits]

Now that my phone is a camera phone, I take most of my pictures with it, but that's not good because then I can't load them up on here! Have to change my habits again.

 

[fuzz16]

LOL do you have picture mail? if so you can send that pictures to your photobucket.com account

 

[MyRabbits]

Oh, the dogdays of August are too long for this rabbit show exhibitor. I am so hungry for the show season to begin.

Yesterday I was in the barn helping some of my younger rabbits pose. I was frankly so pleased -- we really have a promising batch of young 'uns coming up. They are quite fine. If they don't do well on the show table that will just be because everyone is getting good results from their lines this year.

A couple weeks ago we took five Flemish down to the Clarke County Fair in Berryville, Virginia in hopes of rehoming them. Two were a neutered/spayed bonded pair whom we had acquired when a friend had to file for bankruptcy. She had intended them as house rabbits, but they were not good enough about their litter training so in the end I had to put them in a hutch in the barn, and they were so bored there. Well, within about twenty minutes of getting to the fair, we had rehomed them with a woman who lived on a goat farm who would be giving them a long run to play in. I was so happy for them.

We only sold one other rabbit, and it was very hard to part with her. I had wanted a litter from Eleanor so badly but she simply had proved infertile. Unfortunately, we have limited space in our barn so we can't keep our mature rabbits that we aren't using in our breeding program. Eleanor is an incredible love, and she did find an excellent new home with a family of young girls who absolutely adore her. She has a hutch under the willow trees. But I still miss her. She was a very good wabbit.

September heralds not only the beginning of the show season but also the beginning of our fall breeding season. We are planning more litters than we ever have before, primarily because we have a number of younger does who need to be bred in that critical first kindling timeframe. So in early September we will be breeding three sandy does; in mid-October we will be breeding a white and a sandy doe; and then in early January we will be breeding another sandy doe and white doe. I just hope we are able to place all the kits in good homes. Also, I anticipate that many of these rabbits will be highly showable so I am hoping to place them with other breeders. We'll just see how many of the does do actually kindle.

The other week we finally had our "farm visit" with the vet. I had wanted to do that for a long time. Basically, the advantage of having a farm visit is the vet can then legally have a vet-patient relationship with the herd itself. This means that, should you, for instance, get an infectious disease in your herd, they would only have to diagnose one animal before they were able to prescribe medicine for the entire herd.

The vet we go to now has two rabbit vets, some other vets, and then the farm vet who does the visits. The rabbit vets briefed him before he came. I had earlier talked with one of the rabbit vets about getting some oxytocin for my does, and she had also indicated that would not be a problem once we had a farm visit. One of our does' milk did not come in back in early June, and I never wanted to be faced with that problem again. Oxytocin, a powerful mammalian hormone, stimulates uterine contraction (and so is helpful in getting stuck kits or after birth out) and also brings the milk down. I was really pleased when the first thing the vet did on his arrival was hand me a large bottle of oxytocin. I am definitely ready to breed again!

Yesterday I was especially pleased on posing SM Spencer Tracy, the last of white Wendy's litter of seven. We had not planned on keeping him, but no one seemed to be calling for him as either pet or show rabbit so I decided I might as well show him in the meantime. He was the fifth smallest of the seven; we sold off the two smallest as pets, and I wondered if perhaps we shouldn't do that with him as well. As long as he was with his siblings he was far below the targeted weights for his age group for a good show Flemish White. More recently I had weighed him and been thrilled and surprised that he was right on target for his age to weigh 15 pounds at 8 months, two pounds over the senior minimum for Flemish Giant bucks. Well, I was even more thrilled yesterday when I posed him and saw what a nice mandolin shape he had!

Then, of course, within hours, I received the email that a woman I had told about him wanted to buy him. She will give him a very nice home as a house rabbit and I do think that is best for him, but I am also encouraging her to put off neutering a little while. There are a couple local shows here in Maryland that she could easily take him to in November, when he would be an Intermediate, and maybe that would be fun for her. At any rate, she will not be getting him until Labor Day, which means I can still show him once at Mill Hall the day before. I do hope he wins a ribbon or something to take along with him to his next home!

Well, that's about all the rabbit news. Hope to see you at the shows in just a few weeks.

 

[MyRabbits]

One more week till the show season begins. I had hoped to spend this weekend grooming my rabbits, especially the whites, who need a lot of cleaning, but a sore gut kept me in bed most of the time. Fortunately, Mill Hall is not until Sunday so maybe I can do some effective cleaning on Saturday.

I still don't know how to post pictures properly, but I will post links to Flickr of some of our rabbits. Beau, sone of Bessie and Guenther (both grand champions), won one leg as a junior at Nationals and another leg as an Intermediate at State College. He is now a big, somewhat roly poly senior. We will not be taking him to Mill Hall, but we will be taking him to Cortland the following week. Beau is, unfortunately, a very messy boy. He likes to lie in his urine to cool off. Needless to say, this leaves his beautiful cream belly stained an awful yellow-orange. As a result, we have decided to put him on wire. Unfortunately, the wire hutch is smaller than what he is accustomed to. As a result, every morning and evening I let him out to run in the barn. Initially, he would test the rules, occasionally running out of one stall door and back in another just so I would follow after him, pick him up, and remind him the rules say you have to stay in the barn. More recently, he has discovered Samantha's hutch, and he hangs around it like an absolutely lovelorn Romeo. When I open her hutch door, he invariably tries to hop in to be closer to her. Young Beau is in love! This is a good thing, as we had planned anyway to breed him with Samantha at Cortland, a pairing suggested by Judge Bob Shaftoe at Tennessee.

http://www.Flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4941158435

We will be showing Delicious Delilah at Mill Hall as she will be approaching six months. She will be just six months at Cortland so we will not make her make that long trip. We got Delilah from Marc Griffith of Tennessee last July when we were in Tennessee for the Fourth of July Extravaganza. She was just four months then, and Judge Bob Shaftoe took one look at her and told Marc to "lock her up till Convention." I was so afraid he would not then sell her to us, but he is a good man and still did so. The irony, of course, is that Marc is going to Convention while we are not. I have been working with Delilah on posing and she is still very awkward and nervous with it. I am afraid her rise is a little too early, but otherwise she is developing into a lovely doe.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4941158361

Mr. Fred, our neutered Holland Lop, is an absolute joy to be around. He lives in the bedroom in a hutch and comes out to hop on the bed whenever we have brought a Flemish GIant doe in to the bedroom. He is particularly close to SM Beatrix Potter, the sole kit from the SMF litter between Samantha (SMA02) and Guenther Grunt (HR622). Here the two of them are snuggled together on the bedroom windowsill.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4941158281

As I wrote earlier, SM Eleanor Roosevelt, whom I had so wanted a litter from but who proved to be sterile, went to her forever home in the wind in the willows with Dori, a lovely lady we met at the Clarke County Fair. I do still miss her and today posted this picture of me holding her the night before we took her to the Clarke County Fair.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4941158481

The really big news is that my husband and I will be divorcing but South Mountain Rabbitry will continue as our joint venture. I will move closer into my job with Guenther Grunt (HR622), Parsifal (the Fuzzy Lop I am getting in two weeks), Jemimah (my 8-year-old spayed Black Dutch), and Maddie (my 6-year-old California mix). Scott will take over the weekday care of the rabbits, which I will really miss, but I will come up on the weekends to do rabbit things and to go to shows with Scott. We both simply agreed that the barn was the best possible place for the rabbits to be and that they should stay there. It will not be an easy next year or so, but I am sure the rabbits will be well-cared for and loved.

 

[fuzz16]

i have been reading but am HORRIBLE about posting. you need to visit my way lol. i am flemish giant hunting right now

thats to bad about the divorce. seems like a lot of people i work with and know are getting divorces. hope everything works out best and i am glad you two can be so civil when it comes to the rabbits

eleanor is such a beautiful girl btw

 

[MyRabbits]

Yay! Show season has officially begun! I love fall for the livable temperatures it brings to the rabbits; I love this time of year for getting to catch up with rabbit friends at the shows.

Sunday I took a minivan-ful of Flemish Giants up to Mill Hall, PA for the West Branch Rabbit Breeders Open Show and Flemish Giant specialty show. There weren't as many rabbits or Flemish Giants as last year. I suppose the economy is really taking its toll on people about now, and I do know several people didn't show due to health problems. But a good time was had by all that were there, as nearly as I could tell.

I had particularly looked forward to Mill Hall, as I had four young rabbits who would soon be aging up into the next class. I was very eager for them to get good comments and possibly win legs. I had great results with two of them -- Delilah, my junior sandy doe, and Estrellita, my junior white doe -- but poorer results for Nathan Detroit and Dusk, my two intermediate sandy bucks. My senior does, whom I had only taken to get in the mood for breeding, surprised me by placing very well; the whites were all outshone [pun] by Estrellita.

First, the scoop on the junior does. When we got Delilah from Marc Griffith at a show in Tennessee in July, the judge, Bob Shaftoe, who is judging Flemish at Convention, said, "Lock her up until Convention." At that point, I was afraid Marc would not sell her to us, but, good man that he is, he did. The irony is that he is going to Convention while we are not. Anyway, I am keeping her showing to a minimum so it won't interfere with her development but thought Mill Hall would be good, as it was the last weekend she was a junior. Delilah did great. In both shows, there were enough rabbits in the class to have a leg, and Delilah won both times. Both judges (Paul Kyle and Eric Stewart) indicated that she was really a "class apart" from the does with which she competed. In selecting BOV sandy, they considered her closely but ultimately awarded it to the senior sandy doe who won BOB both shows. I believe Delilah competed very well. Other breeders also noticed what a fine rabbit she was and complimented me on her. Since she is the first junior I have ever had to win two legs, I am VERY pleased.

Of course, there aren't many Flemish Giant whites on the table. There were only two does in Estrellita's class, the other doe being a younger half-sister. Estrellita won her class both shows. In the first show she went on to beat her half-brother and her own father to win BOV. I believe that was good for a leg. In the second show, the junior buck won BOV and Estrellita was BOSV. I don't think she will get a leg for that.

Bessie and Samantha, two senior does that I had considered breeding that weekend, absolutely amazed me. I had basically retired them from the show circuit but brought them to help get them in the mood. Well, Bessie did great, placing second in her class of 20 in the first show, second only to the doe who won BOB; Samantha placed sixth in that class. In the specialty show, the class had only 18. Bessie placed third, and Samantha was seventh. I was so proud of both of them, so pleasantly surprised.

The disappointment came with the intermediate sandy bucks. Nathan Detroit had been a very handsome junior, but the heat of July had been very hard on him. When he should have been growing, he actually lost weight and became cranky. When the temperatures broke, he returned to his sunny self and resumed eating, but it seemed to me that he had lost his nice mandolin shape -- his hindquarters no longer had the proportionate breadth they had had before. And that is exactly what the judges commented. It didn't help that both he and Dusk started a tremendous moult from their previous luxurious coats just a week before the show. Dusk and Nathan Detroit were the only two intermediate sandy bucks in the class. In the open show, Paul Kyle was absolutely loathe to DQ Dusk because he felt he was so much a better rabbit than Nathan Detroit. But upon examining Dusk, he gently said, "We have an issue." He turned him over for me to see -- Dusk had one undescended testicle. I was SO disappointed.

The next day I did let Dusk's breeder know about the undescended testicle. I am getting a sandy doe from him, Elizabeth Regina, in a couple weeks. Friends are transporting her from Michigan for me. Well, Duane told me not to argue but to tell my friends to be ready to take a buck home for me as well! I did as he said. I was so thoroughly touched! Duane is such a great guy. I learned that he had recently lost this buck's sire and some other rabbits when a worker sprayed pesticide too close to the barn. The sire was Double Take so I told him I would name the buck Double Trouble, after his sire. He liked that but then joked that he would put Double Nuts on the pedigree! He is so funny.

Because there is a possibility that Dusk's testicle could later descend, I told Duane I would owe him a rabbit in that case. I told him it would come from a litter from Delilah and either Dusk or Double Trouble. He said we had a deal. He is such a good, good man. And a lot of fun to be friends with.

It was, of course, wonderful to see old friends after the long hiatus of the hot summer. So many people had lost so many rabbits to the severe heat. That was very sad to hear. But everyone looked good and seemed in good spirits. I believe a good time was had by all. Congratulations to Wayne Bechdel for once again putting together such a nice event at Mill Hall!

Next weekend is the big Flemish Giant specialty show in Cortland, put on by our club, Eastern Stated Flemish Giant Rabbit Breeders. It is a delightful event, one show each day, held in a very nice private show barn. In addition, my friend Ginger and her fiance Ivan will be getting married there Saturday evening right before the annual chicken barbeque, which will serve as the reception. One of the breeders' husband is a clergyman and will be performing the service. My husband is bringing up a lot of sound equipment and will be djing the reception. I think everyone is looking forward to this with a great deal of excitement.

Even better, I will be taking all day off Friday so that for once I will arrive there in decent time Friday evening. Oh, I am really going to love just having a three-day workweek!

Hope everyone is in good spirits and good health till then!

 

[fuzz16]

they need to have more shows in the midwest. lol. i miss them all due to work sadly....sounds like you have some good allys in the shows though

 

[MyRabbits]

There are such great Flemish breeders in the Midwest, but I don't imagine there are a lot of shows near Kansas. If you can ever get the time to get away, twice a year Bob and Lynn Bolyard have a show at their private showbarn in southern Michigan. They are wonderful people, real leaders of the Flemish community, and the shows at their place are a wonderful experience. Is there a Midwest or other regional Flemish Giant club that covers Kansas? It might be good to join it. You could find out on the National Federation site: http://www.nffgrb.com. Actually, I just took a look. It seems like all the regional clubs in the Midwest do not cover Kansas. That is really too bad. With there not being a club covering Kansas, I can see that it is not at all likely that there are many shows near you. It's too bad I did not know about you being in Olathe. Flemish Giant Nationals was in Sedalia, MO this past May. We went to it, and it was a lot of fun!

Let me look into the matter of blues in the Midwest for you. I don't know how far afield you are willing to go. The Clouses, in Indiana, have excellent blues, but I think there is probably somebody a good bit closer. The Bolyards have superb, top of the line fawns and are often looking to place some of their mature stock because they are having to cut back as they age. Again, if I take a look, I can probably remember someone with quality fawns who is closer to you than that.

 

[fuzz16]

it really surprises me being in kansas there are not more shows. i know there is like gardner fair where they show but around here ts netherlands, mini rex, and holland lops that are most prominent.

i wanted to go to the sedalia show pretty bad this year, i normally go because i have a chicken in the fair or two and my grandpa shows chickens. but with working two jobs its hard to get away. never been to a rabbit show yet. so ill look forward to my first one

 

[MyRabbits]

Well, we are back, exhausted but happy, from Cortland. It was a fantastic show, and the Saturday evening wedding of Ginger Daniels and Ivan Walters onsite at Windwood was a wonderful bonding experience for the community of Flemish Giant rabbit breeders.

Saturdays show Josh Humphries chose Best of Breed. He selected the Senior Sandy Doe belonging to Calixto of New Jersey as BOB and the senior sandy buck of Carlo Zappia of New York as BOS. Sunday Bill Rice chose BOB. He selected Brian and Roger Hornbeeck's (New York) senior fawn doe and then the senior sandy buck, but I'm not sure whose sandy buck it was.

Our whites did not do well due to the terrific moult they are still undergoing. I was pretty disappointed with how our new senior sandy buck, Beau, did, but he is so young as a senior, I guess he has a lot more development yet. I hope. The one who really made me proud was Samantha, a sandy senior doe from our very first litter of kits. She had shown very well as an intermediate but it took her a long time to reach senior weight. Since we several times bred her but she did not conceive until April, we also weren't showing her much. I guess she finally has developed into an eye-catcher. Saturday she was fourth in her class of nineteen sandy senior does, which really thrilled me. Sunday she was third of the 17 does in the sandy senior doe class. I was even happier. I am so proud of her.

I am also proud of Lily, Dolly's daughter (SMC01), whom we had sold to Calixto. It was her very first weekend as a senior and yet she was sixth on Saturday. Then, really making my day, she won the sandy senior doe class on Sunday and went on to win Best of Variety. I was really hoping she would give Calixto a second Best of Breed, but then Bill Rice selected that fawn doe. Oh, well, I was very proud of Lily, and her dam Dolly and her sire Max.

I had earlier determined to sell Max, but now I think I will keep him. He must be a better sire than I realized. We did not bring Lily's brother Nathan Detroit with us. He did very well as a junior, but he did not deal with the hot temperatures in July and August well. From early July to mid-August, instead of gaining weight and growing, he actually lost weight. I don't know whether he will be able to make up for that lost period of growth or not, but I did not see a point in showing him when he so minimally reached senior weight and was in such a great moult. I do hope he surprises me in a couple of months by looking just as good as Lily does.

While at Cortland, I also got my American Fuzzy Lop broken black buck kit, Parsifal, from my friend Sheri May of New Generation Rabbitry. He is so cute. I have only taken pictures of him with my cell phone and need to convert them over to the computer to post. I suppose I could do that now. Aha, here we go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4987072818

 

[MyRabbits]

While at Cortland, Saturday night (Sept. 11, 2010), we also bred Bessie and Guenther Grunt and SM Samantha and SM Beau.

Bessie (Bess Truman, 8V132) is a Grand Champion whom we bought as an Intermediate with one leg from Valerie DeLair (Cedar Breaks Rabbitry) when we were at Flemish Giant Nationals in Michigan in 2009. Her first litter with Guenther Grunt, born November 30, 2009, was very successful, producing among others, SM Beau, whom we bred to SM Samantha. We are very excited about the upcoming litter. Although she is aging, Bessie still shows quite well:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441@N05/4989497405

Guenther Grunt, from Welch's Hoppin' Haven of Pennsylvania, is also a Grand Champion and has nothing to prove. He was the second place sandy senior buck at Flemish Giant Nationals in 2009. He is also an incredibly compassionate, understanding and chivalrous buck:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441N05/4989497443

SM Samantha (SMA02) would have won a Grand Champion on three intermediate legs last year, but I messed up the paperwork so she has had to start over. She has had one litter with Guenther, producing SM Beatrix Potter (b. May 14, 2010), who will debut at DelMarva in a couple of weeks. This pairing of Samantha with SM Beau was actually suggested by Judge Bob Shaftoe at the Tennessee July 4th Extravaganza. We are eager to see the results:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441N05/4989497483

SM Beau is a young senior and still has a lot of development to do before we really know what we have on our hands. At Flemish Giant Nationals 2010 in Sedalia, Missouri, he was the first place sandy junior buck, winning his first leg. He won a second leg as an Intermediate at State College in June 2010. He has the best of the mellow personalities of his parents, Bessie and Guenther. He is a real love bug and was so in love with Samantha before we bred them. He used to hang like Romeo around her hutch when he was let out to run:

http://www.flickr.com/9384441N05/4990104218

So I'll keep you posted on how these does are doing. Hopefully they both took. On Sunday, we will additionally be breeding Dolly Girl (R724B), from the Bolyards of Michigan, with a John Trone buck.

 

[MyRabbits]

The final score on sweepstakes points for the National Federation of Flemish Giant Rabbit Breeders is in for 2009-2010. Our friend Mark Griffith, breeder of our Delilah (G72) was third; we were thirteenth, which is fine. I don't want to be concerned about sweepstakes points. I just want to see my younger rabbits develop well and to get good quality kits out of them as they mature.

I had a nice chat with Mark last night. He is going to Convention in November and told me that the rabbits will be judged on Monday, November 8, when Delilah is still an Intermediate (she becomes a Senior on November 9). Of course, when Bob Shaftoe first saw Delilah at four months, he said, "Lock her up till Convention." Since it would be nice to see if Delilah developed as well as Bob thought she would, I would like to find a way of getting her to Convention. Mark reminded me that the Stovers, friends in Pennsylvania, are going this year. I will have to steel myself to ask them the very big favor of taking her to Convention this year for us. They are so nice -- I hate to impose!

Anyway, let me get you a few pictures of Delilah. This is Delilah when we first got her, at four months:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441N05/4941158361/

And here are two more of her from last night, a little into her sixth month. I should really get a niced posed picture of her for you, but she likes to play with me and never wants to buckle down and pose properly for me. (Fortunately, she poses well for the judges!):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441N05/4992505533/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9384441N05/4992505491/

 

[fuzz16]

sounds like you are doing really good with the shows and your giants!! and thats so gat that you know your rabbits so well and spend so much time with them, they are such lucky little show bunnies

none of the pictures worked though, the links said page nto found