Three rabbit breeders, now friends Hannah, Stephanie, and Beth, talked me into showing and since then my life has completely changed. Throughout the year, I have bought seven SFs, three bucks and four does. I attended five shows, which included my very first rabbit show ever! Three in Georgia, one in Alabama, and one in South Carolina. Three were triples and two were doubles. My sweet Tale of Tails Ciara did the poorest at the shows, yet was in all five. She did snag one 1st/3 at WGRC 10/6/18 as an Int and has earned total of 124 points. She has been a trooper in helping us make numbers and she is a sweetheart. GC Miss Maggie's Leon is a five-year-old (retired to brood) buck, whom I never planned to show because he is obviously not in his prime and I did not want to stress him. However, to help us make numbers, I did take him to two shows. He surprised me by taking 1st/6 at SPRC 12/1/18 and in those two shows he earned 64 display points with 86.5 specialty points. ...

This is one of those posts that I hope I don't have to write and yet this is the reality of rabbit keeping...at least, sometimes. I had a difficult start this breeding season, partially because the heat of summer stayed well into the autumn season, which probably contributed to why the first breeding did not take—the bucks must have been heat sterile. Then there was the fact that I only had two does breeding age to start and I wanted to show them both, but especially Luna, who did not do as well as I hoped at first but when the cooler weather came, she finally went into prime condition, won her legs, and was ready to be bred. Finally, I had pregnant does, but.... Twilight, a first time mom, was clueless after she kindled and wanted to lie in the nest, but after separating her from her kits a few days until her milk came in, she was a great mother to her four kits and they are all looking healthy, fast growing, and quite wide. Canyon had three—one black, one blue, and one w...

I have been holding back a secret that I am now ready to tell. At our very first show, the judges commented much on the type of our Silver Foxes presented. One thing that I heard more than a few times was that many of our rabbits had long shoulders. So, I made a decision to try to find a doe with short, deep shoulders so that we could get better shoulders into the Georgia Silver Fox lines. The first breeder that came to mind was the same breeder of GC Miss Maggie's Leon. To my surprise, she had a junior doe entered into the 2018 ARBA Convention that she believed would be what I wanted and after talking about her back and forth for a short time, I was sold. I contacted my transporter to be sure she had space, which she did. Then I sent the breeder the full payment for Avery on October 9th, about 3 weeks before the convention, as well as paid my transporter. Imagine my surprise and excitement when the breeder contacted me to say that Avery had won Best of Breed at the co...

One of the things I love about Christmas, since we started with rabbits eight years ago, is Christmas bunnies! This year it is more fun because I look forward to showing them and I have I have a doe due on Christmas, (but if you have read previous posts you already know that my rabbits often like to mess with my brilliant breeding plans, so we shall see). The doe that is due on Christmas is  GC Luna . She was bred to my friend Hannah's Dallan, an amazing blue that probably would have been Best of Breed at several shows, if blue was presently an accepted color.  Three days after Thanksgiving, Twilight  kindled four from her breeding with her grandfather GC Leon , all black and carrying blue blue from their mother. I suspect that Leon does not carry dilute, so all his offspring will be black. Twilight was a bit clueless being a first time mother, which makes me thankful that my husband was home to watch her while I was away for the event. Of course, she was a day...

I was having a down day on Friday, for no reason in particular. GC Leon x Twilight's four kits in the nest were opening their eyes and lifting their cute little fuzzy ears, which is my absolutely favorite day in every kit's life, but even that was not lifting my spirits. I did not even want to spend some quality bunny love time with them, which is so not like me. We had not gone out to retrieve the mail until the evening....but sitting there in the dark depths of my mailbox was my smile! It is now official! I have two more Grand Champions: Astro Man and Luna!

Hannah Yost of Renaissance Farmstead and I went to the Southern Pride Rabbit Show in Hopkins, SC this past weekend with a two of Stephanie's rabbits with us. It was the last show to which we planned to go for 2018 and it was just far enough that doing the drive all in one day was a bit much. Plus this was in the area that Hannah had gone college so she knew the area well and she had planned where we would eat, SakiTumi for sushi on Friday night and Lizard's Thicket on Saturday night. This one was only a double and we mostly were doing it to help a few breeders in states east of Georgia, who had too few rabbits to make the numbers necessary to win legs on their own. I was asked to tattoo three rabbits for a first-time exhibitor couple, but two had to be scratched so I only did the one. Originally, Hannah and I were planning to keep our best out of the show...that is the ones who had won at least three legs. However, numbers slipped downward and a few of the better on...

It is a thrill to watch a judge place your rabbit first in its class. When you have a more than one in first place in the same show, it is even a bigger thrill. However, to have one of those rabbits earn one Best of Breed and two Best of Opposite Sex all in one triple...it is very hard not to contain your excitement! That is exactly what happened to me Saturday at the C.A.R.E. Fall Frenzy show in Anniston, Alabama. I had been disappointed that Luna had been making a few first places, but looked over for BOB and BOS at the previous shows. She was a bit out of condition from the summer in the first show, but I still hoped that she would be granded this fall. The second show was just a week after the first, but still I was beginning to think maybe my perspective was skewed. However, in this show, all three judges saw what her breeder, Beth of Silver Lox Rabbitry, and I had seen in her. What a sweet surprise! She won Best of Breed in the first show and Best of Opposite Breed in both the ...

Have you taken a look at my shareable charts and records templates? They are always on the side bar menu under TTR Charts. Have you ever bought a senior rabbit and wondered about its history beyond the pedigree lineage? I have quite often. I wished I had been offered a breeding record instead of just saying it is proven or that I had paperwork to show when I was asked a does' average size kindle. Since I would prefer having those records given to me as a buyer, I decided that I would do that for my buyers. There is software that will keep track of things like breeding, weights, shows, and more but none of them had everything I wanted or did not have it the arranged how I wanted. So, I designed a few record keeping charts that I am sharing. These charts can be copied and/or printed for personal use as long as they are not sold or used in any commercial ventures for financial gain. If copied and stored online or used by a compatible program, some have averages figured out ...

The Georgia State RCA Fall Show 2018 was yesterday and I was thrilled that Astro Man won both shows as a senior black buck. This means he has won 1st place in all five shows in his class. However, yesterday he also won Best of Variety and Best of Breed in both shows! I was extremely pleased! He has filled out much better in the last couple of months than I thought he might, one judge commented "good commercial type." Of course, he was not into doing his show pose for the picture, but I think he liked the ribbons! I could not choose between two purple or two black and red, so I got one of each! That was the good of the show for me, however I probably should subtitle this post as "How Not to Do a Show." This show was not one I had planned to enter into as it was a long haul and a double, but one breeder thought she would have to bow out of the CARE show on November 10th and she could go to this one. It was too last minute in many ways.  As it turned ou...

A couple of weeks ago I tattooed my rabbits that needed to be done for the upcoming West Georgia Rabbit Club Annual Fall Festival, a triple, in Carrollton, Georgia on October 6, 2018. Starry Knight and Twilight had been done at Silver Lox when I bought them on May 19th , but they had faded so much that they were hard to read so they were redone. Luna, also from Silver Lox, had not yet been tattooed and had not yet been shown, so she was done. Lastly, I did my two junior does that I decided to keep. Then I had to do a few touch-ups a few days before the show. I decided that my homebreds would have different colors for their tattoos. Purple for the does and green for the bucks. It makes it quicker for knowing their genders at a glance. There are only four Silver Fox breeders who are showing currently in our area, which makes it hard for all of us. We need a minimum of three exhibitors (breeders) with a total of five entries (rabbits) for each class  for a Best of Breed (BOB) a...

In the last few weeks, I had three rabbits with eating issues and all for different reasons! Canyon It has been a particularly hot summer and it has gone particularly long as well, so I was not too concerned when Canyon seem to just not be that interested in eating pellets nor was she drinking water. After two days of not drinking or eating, I got rather concerned. While I was out in the rabbitry, I noticed that she was licking her resting pad, which is not normal, and I thought it might be a sign that she was thirsty, even though her water bottle was full. I check the nozzle with my finger as I usually do during the winter when it is near freezing and I could not feel the ball. Apparently, it had become stuck in the tube and needed to be cleaned, which was odd because I had just cleaned her water bottle a few days before this started. Rabbits will not eat if they cannot drink water. After I cleaned it, she drank and drank. I felt terrible about the fact she was suffering from de...

Last Sunday I spent the entire day in the rabbitry. I set up my grooming table and my scale, lined up brushes and nail clippers, and put on my kevlar sleeves. I was organized and ready! Ladies First The first to come out was Canyon . She was in molt, but not particularly matted. However, she was more underweight than I had hoped. It is not uncommon for rabbits to eat less during the summer heat, but she ended up being the one most under the senior weight requirements. She is also the one I hope to breed first when the temperatures drop just a bit more, but I would like to see an improvement in her condition now as well. Second out was Twilight . She was still quite shy of me, but she accepted the grooming well. She is 6½ months old, but already over senior weight at 10 lbs. 4 oz. That was a surprise with the heat. I am happy of course, but I was hoping to show her as an 6/8 intermediate for her first show over a month away. However, she can be bumped up to the second in lin...

After getting my rabbitry binder back into shape, I was thinking I would sit down and start devising a breeding plan that would work around the fall shows I want to attend. I also needed to add all my breeders here on my blog as well! I had only one doe listed as I began writing this post, but I also had three with a fourth potential and two bucks with a third potential for some time. Yet, just when I thought it was time to gear up and plan for the breeding season and upcoming shows...and opportunity presented itself that would have blown up those brilliant breeding plans anyway! Beth of Silver Lox Rabbitry had made a difficult decision to sell out of her rabbits because her work schedule and its inflexibility had been making it completely impossible for her to show. I cannot express my sadness about that. I was so looking forward to going to shows and having her there; the Silver Fox breed is rare because breeders are rare and good breeders are rarer still. I had bought a proven d...

This past year I have been in the process of making, remaking, and modifying an rabbitry record keeping system that works for me. I started with wanting to organize my pedigrees and to keep track of weights because a year ago, I was meat breeder just wanting to work toward that sweet goal of five pounds at eight weeks old and a 65% dress out weight. (So much has changed since then, but that would still be ideal!) I looked into the few programs for pedigrees and I decided on  KinTraks . It created customizable pedigrees, at a least to a point that I was happy enough with it. It also had other features that I like and will use like keep track of show records and and business side of things: sales, purchases, retired stock, and such. I liked that I did not have to have an Internet connection as it is all on my computer. There is both good and bad in that, but I prefer it for that reason. I make hard copy pedigrees on all my rabbits homebred that I plan to keep or sell and place the...

There may be those who disagree, but I have found that most responsible breeders do not breed their rabbits in the summer, particularly in the southern states. While it is true that some rabbit breeds are more heat hardy than others and those in the most northern areas of the United States have cooler summers, the Silver Fox is a breed that was developed to have unique, long, stand-up fur coat and it is best for the cooler climates or at least colder seasons. It is also a heavier, meaty rabbit therefore one that is not built for the heat that way either. In the wild, rabbits sleep in holes dug out in the ground where the temperatures are consistently in the 50's. Some rabbit breeders do the colony style method advocating it is a more natural way to raise rabbits and requires less work for the rabbit keeper. This method allows rabbits to create burrows like their wild cousins. However, the downside of the colony method outweighs the upside of it for those who have chosen cag...

We had plans this past weekend to get caught up with things in the rabbitry, but something came up that required us to put it off again. It had been like that for about three weeks, so Independence Day was the day we finally were able to get things done. I discussed my plans in  Thinking Out Summer Culls  about which of my breeding stock would be culled.  I offered Lancelot to a meat breeder who not only thought he was pretty, but loved his temperament.  I tried to offer Comet, because he was so sweet and smaller, but we had only one person who responded and then she did not pursue it. I knew it would be long shot for him.  Misty Blue was too old to offer as a brood doe. Her pelt is huge and the meat will be ground, because it is likely to be tougher. Black Ivy...I just could not in good conscious ever try to offer her to anyone. She just had too poor of a body type with her hips being as they were. Her kits were naturally weaned since we were delaye...

Since I started this blog to journal my journey in rabbit keeping to benefit others, I have to include the downsides as well as the upsides. So, I wish to confess that for the past several weeks I have been very discouraged about the prospects of showing my rabbits at all for a number of reasons, but yesterday I came to that pivotal moment of making a decision. A meat rabbit breeder explained to me recently that he does not even bother trying to fit in and avoided the "bullies," referring to rabbit breeders, who had no reservations about demeaning other breeders, particularly meat breeders who are not necessarily working towards the standard of perfection (SOP) for the breed. I knew there would be those types of people, who not only work to improve their breeding lines to meet the SOP, but practically demand that no one else sell a rabbit that is not show quality. My husband calls them the Silver Fox Rabbit Police. The SF Rabbit Police will say that selling a cull r...

The Good These past few weeks really  swooshed  by! So imagine my surprise that I had a reminder on my phone that Starry Knight and Twilight have completed their quarantine as of today. This is very good! I had them in a soft quarantine as this was my second buy from Silver Lox and I had spent quite a bit of time there looking over all her rabbits, which were quite healthy. I am so excited about Starry Knight, but I am very glad I did get some Kevlar sleeves, because he will seem to be calm after I first get him out of the cage and will seem relaxed after a time then suddenly he just goes wild trying to get away, even screaming, although I am not hurting him. He is not vicious and does not try to bite, he is just scared. I will be working with him even more now that I have these sleeves and, yes, they do offer quite a bit of protection. Even though I have kept his nails well trimmed, he is particularly good leaving bloody scratches, but not one scratch through the sleev...