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 ones had to be added. The rabbits Hannah and I had transported from the convention were still in post convention quarantine, but only with a few days more to go—we strongly thought about taking them, but in the end we did not. My one and only hope for my own rabbits as an outcome from this show was that Starry Knight would win his third leg so he could be granded.
In the first show, our rabbits were on the table of a judge who loves Silver Foxes. She had chosen Starry Knight for Best of Breed in my very first show, which seems so long ago now but in reality was only two months ago. I was hopeful except for one thing...and it was that one thing that put him 2nd of 5 instead of 1st of 5. The judge explained that he was her top pick, but the urine strains in his fur on both sides made it so that she could not place him on the Best in Show table. I was extremely happy that everything about his type, including the texture of his fur was more of what she wanted to see in a Silver Fox, although he could use a bit more of this and that here and there, but I also disappointed that he could not possibly win a leg until his next molt in the spring.
The second judge surprised me completely! I had been talked into bringing Leon, my 5-year-old rabbit, because Hannah had planned a breeding between him and one of her does, which we tried the previous Sunday and it did not happen, so we thought we would try a table breeding after the show. So, Leon was not a hopeful in my mind—in fact, the first judge disqualified him for his whitish pads, which should be darker. He is past his prime, so muscle tone is not as good, and to add to that loss of meatiness, he had lost about half a pound in the last month (for no reason that I have been able to determine), but this judge was focusing far more on the stand up quality of the fur and although Leon has a softer, silkier, finer fur than some judges have liked, he does have that stand up quality quite evenly. So...Leon was chosen for Best of Breed in Show B!
Hannah and I had toyed with the idea to start home after the second show, but large storm had been moving through the southeast and although it was mostly just rainy we knew that other drivers would be the factor of driving at night in the rain. We decided to stay the night for which we had originally made the reservation and not being in a hurry at that point, we went off to do things like write for judges and talk to people. Hannah is very interested in working towards a national Silver Fox show in Georgia and creating a regional SF club to have a specialty show.
I learned as much in this show as all the others combined, probably because it was a small double show and the judges were not so hurried. The two we had wanted to teach us about what they were seeing in our Foxes. The second one had judged Silver Foxes in the 1986 convention and knew that blues were still an accepted variety then, so blues were dropped after that probably in the 1990s, which was when I had been originally told. Both judges expressed that they were they could feel a difference in the fur when other breeds were bred into the lines to improve type. Silver Fox fur is so unique and most of the points are on the fur, so such experimental breedings are adding more problems to the one quality that make the Silver Fox so different.
Hannah and I left early Sunday morning, dropped off Stephanie's buns, and arrived at Hannah's place to unpack her things. We placed her doe in again with Leon, but they were just not into breeding like rabbits any more than they had been at the show. So this time, I left Leon with Hannah so she could try them later and I would be picking him up Tuesday. Later Hannah messaged me twice, each with telling me she had gotten a fall-off. Hopefully, it takes!