Gotta Love a Best in Show Fuzzy Lop

Someone was just a little excited when I received an email yesterday. Deb Levisay wrote the report on her show in Yankton, South Dakota on Sept 27th. In Show A, her broken senior buck, Tim won BOB and then was reserve best 4 class. Well Tim thought he could do better than that! So in show B, he pulled out the stops and was best 4 class, then was selected Best in Show.

Keefe/Keyes Timothy is owned by Deb Levisay and was bred by Diana Keefe and Muriel Keyes. Tim is registered and currently has 11 grand champion legs earned under 9 different judges. Deb writes that he is not only a good looking little guy, but very personable too!

Congratulations to Deb, Diana, and Muriel!

Age is just a number

Pet rabbit owners often ask "How long do rabbits live?" Well there's a wide range of life spans in humans and the same is true of rabbits. Some are old at 4 and others live to be 12. I remember a rabbit that lived in a 1st grade school room; he was 13 when he died. I guess all that attention from busy curious 6 year old kids kept him young.

When it comes to show rabbits, the question is often how long can a rabbit be successfully shown. Well that depends also! In general bucks have a longer show career than does, partly because we need the does to be producing the next generation, but also because American Fuzzy Lop bucks need some maturity to get the best head development. Senior bucks are typically at their show prime from 1.5 - 4 yr of age.

Look at this guy below. Its AK's Buckeye. This picture was taken about 2 weeks ago when I pulled him out of his cage and discovered he had found the fountain of youth. Buckeye is 6 years old! Buckeye looks good, feels good, and is doing all the things a young American Fuzzy Lop should be doing.


So Buckeye and I went to a rabbit show last weekend. He placed in the top 5 of his class and just generally stood up for old guys everywhere.

So don't forget to check those cages of your old favorites. They may be ready to make you proud on the show table one more time.

Its Karma!

This lovely girl is Doe # 2 of the trio that will be raffled at Convention. She's donated by Nate Burbidge and Lou Towne. Her name is Burb's Karma. Her mother is a grand champion American Fuzzy Lop, Burb's Hattie Mae and her sire is AK's Cruzer. The other doe in the trio, donated by Muriel Keyes and Diana Keefe, was pictured a couple of weeks ago on this blog,http://aflrc.blogspot.com/2008/09/showtime.html

Sherry Callen sent an email describing her experience last weekend as she traveled to a show in northern Indiana. Did anyone tell her that's is a bad idea to show rabbits during a hurricane?

Sher says: Went to a show yesterday and what a day...one of those like Muriel has shared with us. I left and it was raining, but not bad. I hit the highway and down came the monsoon or should I say hurricane Ike's leftovers. Couldn't see anything and of course the exit I wanted was closed and one had to drive a circle which led me to the detour exit behind a truck in the rain and I missed it. Th good luck was that I was still near enough home to know an alternate route. Kept going but beginning to wonder why, especially as my old rabbit wagon started to hydroplane every so often. Now I like a good slide in a parking lot on snow and ice when no one is around, but not at 45-50 MPH on the highway usually behind a semi. And it didn't get better as Ike just kept raining. Really wondering if I was making a mistake. Finally, made it to South Bend but not before missing another exit and getting lost making the usually easy 1 1/2 hr drive considerably longer and it just kept raining. Got there in time to enter and was very pleased to see Cindy Decker as I had missed seeing all my friends at the last show...couldn't make that one. Now it was time to move bunnies into the barn...yeah right. Since I was late I had to park in the grass which was now getting soft and 6" of mud and a large pond had developed behind my van, because it just kept raining. No way I could use the cart so I started swimming the carriers across and into the barn. Even entering got interesting as the doorway was flooding and they had to drop two wooden stall gates for us to walk on to cross over the 5 " deep puddle. And, you got it...it just kept raining! Finally, got everything in and guess what ...then it finally stopped raining...wouldn't you figure. Well, I decided to run to the rest room and as I was walking out the door, Ron Riddle laughed and pointed out that the water behind the barn was so deep the kids were swimming in it. I turned to look and sure enough a little girl was actually SWIMMING in the water caught behind the barn. Now granted she was only about four years old, but she was on her belly doing the crawl in the water! As the day proceeded the show went on without much trouble and we all had a good time. Then as we were loading up...uh-huh...it started raining!

Well at least Sherry made it home safe. I guess its just "Karma".

Lady Benedict has a GOOD Weekend

A great show weekend that District 8 folks always look forward to was held last weekend in Ionia, MI. There were open and youth shows on Saturday and Sunday including a Lop-O-Rama on Sunday. Here are a bunch of friendly faces, those open Fuzzy Lop exhibitors having fun with the judge.


Cindy D and Dawn G pose with their winners from one show. (The showroom looks awesome by the way)

Jamie F also had a great weekend and is posing with one of her winning Fuzzy Lops.
Results:

Show A, Doug Covert, judge

Open: BOB, SSD, Dawn G; BOSB, SSB, Laura G.; Youth: BOB & BOSB, Jamie F.

Show B, Thomas Green, judge

Open: BOB, SSD, Dawn G; BOSB, BSB, Kathi C

Youth: BOB & BOSB, Jamie F

Sunday show, Theres Kristen, judge

Open: BOB, SSD, Dawn G; BOSB, SSB, Cindy D

Youth: BOB & BOSB, Jamie F

Lop-O-Rama, Gene Johnson, judge

Open: SSD, Dawn G; BOSB, Laura G, SSB

Youth: BOB & BOSB, Jamie F

Below is the photo of the "lady" of the weekend. Dawn's solid senior doe, Lady Benedict won BOB in all four shows. She also Best Four Class in show A by Molly Covert, Open Top Lop (Terry Fender, judge) and Overall Top Lop (Willis Plank). Jamie F had a great weekend with her Fuzzies also, winning BOB and BOSB in all four youth shows. Congratulations!

Now its almost time to hop on the Lop Bus and head south for the ARBA Convention. Bring those beautiful Fuzzies to Louisville in October.

Showtime

Crescent City, CA is on the coast in the northern most corner of the state. That puts it about half way between Portland, OR and the San Francisco, CA, or 400 mi from each of these cities. On Labor Day weekend, the California Rabbit Shows holds 5 shows there. These shows are the perfect meeting grounds for District 1 and 2 friends, so Muriel and I have gone for the past two years. Typically the shows are small but that's alright, because we can show rabbits and then finish early to enjoy the beauty of the coast and the redwood trees.



This is the Crescent City coastline and light house. In 1964, a tsunami hit Crescent City. I kept watching the ocean to make sure no extra large waves were coming my way.

The pretty girl won BOB in Show A. She is owned, for now, by Muriel K and Diana K, but they are donating her to the trio that will be raffled at Convention. Be sure to buy your tickets!

Marian S is one of our newer exhibitors in District 2 and she braved the traffic to come to CC. We had a great time chatting and looking at bunnies, but it was also well worth the drive to Marian when her senior broken buck took BOSB in one show and her junior broken buck was BOSB in another.

Carol & Adam G's broken doe won BOB three times, and she was selected RBIS once and BIS once.

It was a great weekend. If you live in District 1 or 2, consider a drive to the CA coast next year.

More lack of wool

When I posted the photos of my molting bucks, I got more responses than I ever have to a blog post. The typical email read "oh thank you thank you thank you for posting those pictures. I thought my rabbits were the only ones that looked so bad." Uh, glad to help, I guess. As they say misery loves company. Everyone is wondering what to do and when the rabbits will look good again. One suggestion came from an experienced Fuzzy Lop breeder, who says she is singing "grow grow grow you wool" (to the tune of Row your Boat) daily. Other suggestions included putting the bunnies in a dark corner and not looking at them, feeding them less, feeding them more, and regular grooming sessions. Although I have been tempted by the "close my eyes while feeding so I can't see the rabbits" option, I found that I was spilling too much food on the floor. Instead, we are going to look at these rabbits and decide, has there been any improvement?

So here is Camden. When last we left him, he had a bit of the unicorn look on his head and a lovely skirt of wool around the base. I think this is a thumbs up for improvement. He now has new wool, growing more or less evenly on the head, and nearly all the old wool has been plucked out.

Cadet is looking better too, although his wool is very uneven (see his sides). Both bucks were groomed with a blower today to get rid of loose wool, and a few spots of dead wool were plucked. Cadet also got another dose of Ivomec. Both are eating very well, so there is hope!

Not that Convention

Many of you are probably focused on the upcoming ARBA Convention. Afterall entries are due in a couple of weeks and the show itself is less than 2 month away. Well in case you have been living in a cave, there have been a couple of other Conventions held during the past couple weeks, and neither of them had anything do with rabbits.

Photo 1 was taken at the Democratic Convention in Denver and shows Barack Obama making his acceptance speech. The photos were taken by Marc (Photo 2), son of our club secretary, Muriel. And Marc was at the DNC because his wife, Hope (Photo 3) works for James Clyburn of SC, the majority whip of the House of Representative. The last picture shows the hoopla that followed Obama's speech.

I don't mean to be favoring one candidate over the other, so if anyone has pictures of the Republicans, senf 'em on!