Will it was a crazy day for many reasons but a good turn out with 490 rabbits plus 55 cavy. The Mini Rex lead all with 116 entries, then Netherland Dwarf with 78, Holland Lop with 67 and English Lop at 58. We had Champagne D'Argent, Rex, Silver Fox and Thrianta there too which we don't get every show. My Havana's did well but the Blue Buck did the best with BOSB in the A, B & C show. Normally Black Havana's are the most common variety and I had the only one. There were only a total of 10 Havana's there, kinda disappointing on that note. The Chocolates were a strange group of the day, totally different judging order by all three judges. A judge had the third place doe from last month as BOV and BOB, B judge had that doe 2nd, and finally C judge had that rabbit as third. My Sr Chocolate doe as 1st and BOV(same doe that had been getting BOB last few shows) in the B & C shows. A young girl who shows in open Havana's and has nice rabbit, a spectacular Chocolate broken doe that got BOB in the B and C show. I had a few inquiries on some sales and even had a mom who had been contacting me via my website came buy to get my broken buck. The daughter decided on a ND for her FFA project. I supported her decision and wished her luck. My new rabbit friend Lisa had a good day too, she has Mini Rex with her daughter. They have a Blue Broken Mini Rex Jr buck is a site to see, he is going to be a heartbreaker. Will busy month for me as I am moving my father down from TN to a condo down closer to us. It is close to the November show so we may or may not be able to attend that show. Also there is another Mid-Florida club show in Ocala Dec. 1st. That is a 6 hour + drive for us.. They do Have a fur class, so it might be worth it. It is hard doing 2 shows every month thou as there is a Dec 8th show in Bartow also.
This was a great show. Leslie joined me this show and enjoyed her day. We meet a lady and her daughter from the Rabbit Talk forum and they were super nice and they were in the very competitive Mini Rex breed. There were 105 Netherland Dwarf, 89 Holland Lop and 83 Mini Rex. Also there were 63 cavies. So it may for some slow judging and a long day. It was my first show with the Jr Blue buck and the Jr Black & Blue doe's I got from Herb Kelso in SC. They did real well, with the Jr Blue doe(Nestle) winning BOV in the A & B show and the Jr buck getting a 2nd in the A show and BOSV in the B show. Cohiba the Jr buck was in molt and did score low for that. Midnight the Jr Black doe had strong competition with 2 Jr does and 2 Sr does there. She got BOV in the A show and the Judge (Marvin Cummings) didn't like her tattoo from the Inkinator and was going to DQ her, but changed his mind and placed her 2nd. The Broken Sr Buck (Fuente) had a strong class also but won BOV and BOS in the A & B show. My original Havana ,Cocoa, was a Sr Chocolate doe and were 3 Sr does and a Sr buck in her variety. She won BOV and BOB for both the A & B show also. So it was a great showing and with me paying the sanction i received over 160 sweepstakes points. I have paid the sanctions for the rest of the year for the Florida shows and look forward to a litter being born before the end of the year. Godiva had another false pregnancy again , her third. So I will take her to the October show and offer her for sale.
I drove the 500+ miles to Ladson, SC where there was a triple rabbit show going. I was hoping ahead of time to find some Blue Havana's to make the trip worth while. I was thinking that both Nancy and Joan would also go and we would have a good turn out for Havana's. Nancy ended up not going and Joan brought a limited number of rabbit's. With the help of Nancy I was able make contact with Herb Kelso in Camden, SC. He had both a buck and a doe but the does where young and he wanted me to call back towards the end of July. So I called back July 30th and he confirmed he had a Jr blue buck and a blue doe. He also asked since the blue doe was out of a litter of 12 and small, if I'd be interested in the litter mate of the blue doe and it was a black doe. The parents where both blues. I said yes, and the next thing was picking them up. He was now not going to the show, so I offered to drive up Thursday and meet him Friday. He said call me back Wednesday and I'll see if I have a friend who could bring them to the show. I did and all was now set.
The show was nicely run and well done. There where 5 judges and over 500 rabbits there. I got several 1st and BOV(Best of variety) and even a best opposite in my broken buck, Fuente. I decided to enter my Jr buck I picked up after I found out we only had 9 Havana's entered. The judges liked all my rabbits and I received positive comments and all. They really liked the Jr blue buck and I hope he grows up nicely. Overall it was nice and I might consider returning next year since they have it the 1st weekend every August. The Bartow show was my first and I only had the Jr Chocolate doe. I got there just before 7:00am, people where already setting up inside. I quickly picked an open spot. I did not want to be so close the judging tables and where I could get in and out of. After I set up a nice lady with her group of Holland Lops and friends set up next to me. Between the 3 of them they probably had over 30 Lops. They had several for sale and seemed to do good business. I meet Lisa Wilson of Gentle Giant Rabbitry, she was one of the first people I emailed when I decided I was going to raise rabbits in Florida. She introduced me to two of the day's Judge's Marvin Cummings and TL Andrews, both of which raise Havana's. TL (Tommie) had just sold his entire herd of Havanas deciding to go a different route and start fresh with a new breed, seems I missed buying a few by a week or so. I did talk to his wife Terry a few times thru out the day and she was a super nice lady. Marvin was really laid back and I got to talk to him for about 30 minutes. I found he breed's Chocolate Havana's exclusively now and had 3 litters here in the month of June. Hopefully I can buy a few from him. He does still have other breeds but only Chocolate in Havana's. I soon found out I was the only Open class Havana, but did meet a nice family who had just bought a trio at the previous Bartow show at the end of May and was at there first show. They were doing a 4-H project so they where in youth. They had a Chocolate Broken doe, who had a broken tooth so was DQ'd in both the A & B show. They had a real nice Chocolate SR doe, and a Black SR buck who was DQ'd in B show for being only 4 lbs and was over 8 months old. The Judge in the A show mentioned how thin he was but never weighed him. Being the only person and rabbit in the open A & B I got 1st and BOB. Both judges had similar comments and really like her and think she'll be fine after she molts her baby fur out. Hopefully that will be in the next few weeks and I 'll show her in August as her last Jr DeLand 6/02/2012
It was a 3 1/2 hour drive up, not to bad. There was some road construction but no accidents and very few cops. We got there and made are was around, we where meeting Joan Geisy there and saw her right away as she was wearing a Havana Club apron, she was busy talking so we continued walking around. Was only 150 or so rabbits there, and only 8 Havana's. Lots of Flemish Giants, English Lops, Holland Lops and Netherland Dwarfs. Good turn out for Dutch also there where 39 of them. They had two raffle tables and at least 12 rabbits up for raffle. We watched some judging and saw some Cavies being judge also. We saw Joan sitting down so we made our way over and introduced ourselves since we had only exchanged emails. We had a nice talk and learned even more with Joan's knowledge and her history with rabbits and Havana's. We took off from the house around 9:00 am in hopes of getting there around noon. We stopped in Ft.Pierce Hwy 70 filled up on gas. Headed to turnpike north and thru Yee-haw Junction and headed west on Hwy 60. We stopped by a diner in Lake Wales had a great lunch. GPS took us thru the scenic park of Bartow and got to the show and walk inside, parking lot was mostly full. Once inside it looked like about 100 exhibitors and probably 300 rabbits and 25 Guinea pigs. We made a couple of passes thru the crowd and watched some judging. I was trying to identify all the breeds to Leslie and saw some breeds of interest: Havana, Dutch and we even saw a Checkered Giant. The Checkered was a younger Blue doe, looked to be a nice one. We saw Kathryn from Ewok's rabbitry I gave her a hard time for not wearing a green apron like she told me, so it would be easy to find her in the crowd. She was super sweet and was nice to put a face with the emails. We made our way over to some Dutch in the corner but no one around to talk to about them. We made another loop around and finally saw Nancy and Mike Volansky, they had brought their grandson who seemed to having a good time. I asked her a few questions about Havanas and was more than willing to spend some time with me and Leslie and talked for over an hour. Finally she had to take her BOB broken chocolate to BIS. We took a small break ourselves and bought a carrier from a vendor outside and go ourselves something to drink. We went back to Nancy and purchased a Chocolate doe from her and made our way back home. We took the scenic way and drove US27 south to 98 and home.
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AuthorTom Nelson--Palm Beach Rabbitry. I'll try to write a quick overview of each rabbit show I go to and/or anything I feel might worth writing about. Archives
October 2012
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