Placerville Show Report

Well, the Motherlode Rabbit and Cavy Show--Summer in the Foothills Show is what they called it--was a bit of a zoo today.  I think the organizers said they had around 2300 rabbits.  That's a lot of rabbits.  And it was a very small building.  There wasn't enough room for everyone inside.  It was quite hot outside.  And there were probably more than a few fire code violations.  So the show organizers will have a few issues to address for future events. 

But overall the show went well for the girls.  Lydia and Charlotte each sold a junior doe.  So they'll be able to support their bunnies for a few months.  :)

We got to meet Emmie, a very nice lady who bought a breeding trio from the girls earlier this year.  She had kits from them on the table, plus she brought a couple of older rabbits for Charlotte to evaluate.

The judges just kinda want to make your head explode at times.  Well, maybe it wasn't that bad.  Then again, maybe it was.  Julie entered two of her REWs as "fillers" so that there would be enough for a leg.  The two fillers got best and best opposite.

More often than not, Charlotte and Lydia are the only youth showing French angoras.  They will usually have enough rabbits to fill two classes, but not three.  Today, they had only three bucks to take to the show, and we all felt there might not be any other youth showing, so they entered the bucks in the open shows.  There were a total of six junior bucks.  Charlotte entered her broken black buck with the intent of finding out whether he was too heavily colored to be considered show quality.  Not only was nothing said regarding the amount of color, but in a field of six junior bucks in open show A, he placed second.  Moreover, in open show B, he placed first!

In the youth shows, the girls entered only does--five juniors and three seniors.  Sage already had five legs, but they were all as a junior, so we were really hoping she'd get a leg today.  The judge, Uno Kivi, felt her coat was lacking, and he selected Charlotte's blue junior doe for best of breed.  However, in show B, judge Scott Rodriguez chose Sage.  So Sage can retire from showing now that she is a grand champion.  Scott also highly favored Lydia's junior doe Lady Amber, who had had a rather poor body type, or so we thought.  She will now be able to be sold as a show quality rabbit.

Anberly with her junior buck--BOSV, Charlotte with her senior doe--BOV, and judge Scott

Lydia entered her sable agouti, an unshowable color, in the pet class.  And winning first place there just made her day.  The judges complimented her on how well groomed Silver is. 

And as always, we learned something new about the rabbits.  Apparently, if the temperature rises about 80 degrees, bucks can become temporarily sterile for up to 90 days.  Younger bucks will recover more quickly than older bucks.  We haven't researched this yet ourselves.  Ninety days seems like a long time, so I'm not sure about that, but everything else seems like it is very plausible.  I'll have to do some research on that.

All in all, a very good day.