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...