Bring your special Fuzzies to a special show

Ohio Mini Convention

Triple Show Weekend for Fuzzy Lops and Jersey Woolies

Double OSRBA AFL & JW Specialty Shows – Sat. April 30^th, 2011

Open and Youth

Judges: John Soper and Pam Jones

OSRBA Mini Convention All Breed Show – Sun. May 1^st, 2011

Judge: Allen Mesick

Baring any cancellations or unforeseen circumstances these will be the judges.

OSRBA Catalog will be posted soon at www.osrba.net

Open Show Secretary: Bonnie Saunier – (330) 875-5561 openentry@osrba.net

Youth Show Secretary: Laurie Owen – (330) 620-1502 youthentry@osrba.net

Hotel Information:

Ramada Plaza Hotel - (614) 846-0300

Baymont Inn & Suites - (614) 848-9696

Great Combo: Kids and bunnies

Most of you know how it starts.

“Please may I have a pet.  Its just a little bunny.  I’ll take care of him, promise.  Pleeeeease…”  And the fun takes off from there.

So we give in and rabbits become a big part of the family’s life, whether its only one rabbit or a whole barn full of them.

Its easy to forget the wonder of that first rabbit, learning how to take care of it and keep it healthy and happy.

Fuzzies are pretty laid back, aren’t they?

Hey, how did that Jersey Wooly sneak into a Fuzzy Lop blog?  Well that’s OK, they make great rabbits for kids too!

Don’t get discouraged

I don’t understand.  When its cold, I wear a coat.  Apparently American Fuzzy Lops take the change in temperatures as the time to get a new wardrobe.  That makes sense, but running around bare seems wrong to me!

The buck pictured above placed in the top ten in wool at Convention!  Sort of hard to believe, isn’t it?  Well at least he should be looking good by spring.

Is it wool?

We call it wool, you know that stuff covering American Fuzzy Lops and the cage bottoms, walls of our barn, and all of our clothes.  But shepherds will tell you that the only true wool comes from sheep.  Its certainly true that sheep wool has a lot of unique properties.  As stated in the The Knitter’s Book of Yarn, “Wool in yarn is like restaurants in San Francisco.  You could knit a different blend every day for a year…” 

What makes sheep’s wool different from rabbit wool?  It would be easier to show you in person, if you could touch it, but we’ll give this a try anyway.

Look at the crimp or waves in the fiber.  This tends to be very easy to see in sheep’s wool.  This particular lock is from a California Variegated Mutant sheep.  We know that there are differences in the fiber quality—softeness, length of fiber (called staple), and density.  There is probably even greater difference between breeds of sheep!

Now look at the AFL wool.  Although rabbit wool does have crimp, especially in the underwool, it is clearly not as apparent as in  sheep wool  Sheep wool also have more and larger scales than rabbit wool.  As a result, sheep’s wool is more elastic.

Sheep also secrete lanolin (yep that is the stuff that makes your hands so soft), which means the fiber has to be washed before it can be spun into yarn.  In contrast, rabbits are very clean.  You can sometimes see angora owners spinning fiber directly off of a rabbit that is sitting in their lap.  We know that would never work with a Fuzzy Lop.  My rabbits would hop off and start playing before I could get any spinning done.

The next photo shows a batt of CVM sheep wool blended with Fuzzy Lop wool.  This is now ready for spinning into yarn on a spinning wheel or with a hand spindle.

This yarn is has been washed and is being prepared to be dyed.  Both sheep and rabbit wool take up dye very well.

But natural colors look gorgeous too.  This is 100% AFL yarn being knitted into fingerless mitts.  The cuffs are made from an alpaca yarn to add a soft nice trim.

And here is a finished pair of fingerless mitts, knitted from soft AFL wool, trimmed with handspun sheeps wool and silk yarn.  Yummy soft and warm!

 

 

 

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This isn’t baseball

Have you heard the “three strikes rule” advocated when it comes to breeding does?  The basic premise is simple—if a doe misses or has dead babies three times in a row, then the breeder is done with her, removing her from the breeding program.  Early in our rabbit fancy career, we were advised to follow this rule.  Well, it’s the rule in baseball, but does three strikes have anything to do with raising rabbits? 

This pretty doe is Brian’s Samey.  She was purchased by Muriel and I, along with another solid sable point and a broken sable point doe.  We really wanted sable points (can you tell?).  Then disappointment hit.  The does missed or had dead litters multiple times.  Samey was at Muriel’s house and the doe had at least three dead litters.  The other does were at my house and I wasn’t having a lot of luck either getting litters from the. Finally my sable point doe, Avena, raised one kit.  Although we discussed giving up, we really wanted to get offspring from these does.  The rabbits had great type in addition to gorgeous wool and color.  So we decided to trade does and then see what happened.  Maybe a change of locale would help!

Guess what?  Success!  Samey, in California, had one live kit just before Christmas while the other solid doe was busy raising a litter of 3 in Oregon.  Actually the broken sable point doe had a litter of three sable points also.  We are in business now.

Moral of the story:  If you really want to get offspring from a doe, then don’t give up.  Fuzzy Lops don’t play baseball!

“Boy it is warm and cozy in this nestbox”, says the little guy.

Happy New Year

It’s exciting to start fresh with a new year, even though today looks a lot like yesterday (cloudy with drizzle).  Good bye 2010!

View of the Minneapolis, MN skyline from our hotel during the ARBA Convention.