Best of Breed

 I'm a few weeks late in reporting about the Truckee Meadows show in Reno.  Vacations will do that.

Anyway, the girls weren't particularly excited about going to this one.  They didn't have any rabbits that they felt could do well on the table in the open class (youth class is for youth only; open class is for everybody).  They knew Julie would be there, and Julie has nice rabbits.  But I persuaded them that it would be a very convenient time to get rabbits registered.  And they also needed to have Lydia's litter of ten kits evaluated for show or wool quality.

Charlotte clerked for show A.

                                    
 Charlotte was asked to clerk for show A.  She'd never seen paperwork in this style, and no one told her what had to be marked where, so she and the judge had to re-do some stuff at the end.

So we went.  Despite the fact that it was only 30 minutes from our house.  We knew it would be a very long day.  Two of the three judges have a reputation for being on the slow side.

Julie did have some very nice rabbits, but a new person, Jill, had a doe we knew would be doing the winning.  She was gorgeous. 

I think Jill's chocolate tort doe is in the bottom center of this picture.

 And indeed, she did win.  We were all happy for her.

The show was progressing slowly, so we worked on getting rabbits registered.  We were thrilled to have gotten Muddy Buddy up to weight and to have been able to maintain his weight to get registered.  He really doesn't like going to shows and will go off feed while he's there.  And he is a picky eater, so it is hard to get him to gain weight.  He weighed in at 7.10, so he was good to go.

Fudge is on the smaller side, like her dad (Muddy Buddy), but she also made weight.  The same weight as her dad.

Charlotte was really anxious to get Sage registered, as she already has five legs.  We're hoping she'll be in good condition for the Placerville show in August.  Sage needs to win a leg as a senior in order to become a grand champion.  Sage weighed in at 9.0 lbs.

And finally, there was Phantom.  Charlotte did not want to get her registered and refused to bring her to the show because she was sure she was overweight.  But I called my husband and asked him to bring her for us.  Charlotte plopped her on the scale.  Because Phantom is a bit of a porker and quite wiggly, the needle on the scale bounced around a lot.  The registrar decided the needle was hovering right at 10.8 lbs.  Happy day!  Phantom got registered!  Charlotte had to admit that I was right again.

Phantom

We spent a great deal of time at lunch and after having Seth, our 4-H president, and Julie evaluate Lydia's kits.  Charlotte evaluated them beforehand to see how well her assessments lined up with the others'.  She was very happy to see that she was in perfect agreement with them.

It was probably around 5:00 or 5:30 before the French angoras were called up for show B.  We had an amazing 16 rabbits being shown that day, more competition than the girls have ever had before.  The judge was really nice and a bit faster than the show A judge.  He quickly moved through the senior does (and picked Jill's chocolate tort again--no surprise), senior bucks, junior does, and junior bucks.  Coal was the last rabbit he looked at.  And he just gushed over him.  And gushed.  Julie had told us earlier in the day that while most judges are going to select a senior doe as best of breed, every once in a while there is someone who will favor a junior buck.  And we got evidence of that.

Out of a field of sixteen rabbits, Coal won Best in Breed!

Coal