We found a lady that was selling out of her show rabbits. We drove over to see them that night. After some negotiation on the price we loaded a blue breeding pair and a black breeding pair into our truck and took them home. I could see on Matthew's face that it was hard to let go of that money. He invested everything he had and we chipped in some as well. All the way home he was wondering if he made the right decision.
The next day we got their cages setup and started getting our new charges back in shape. The rabbits had not been handled in a long time and their nails were over grown. I could tell right away that they needed a lot of time and attention to make them into fun rabbits to have around. Our black female, called a doe, would jump at us and try to bite. The others were all scared to death of us. I felt so bad for them but I knew the secret to taming them would be spending time holding them and getting them use to us. We bribed them with carrots and brushed them daily. Both the kids would get a rabbit out and just hold it and talk gently to it. After about a month we saw changes in their personalities. Now no one is afraid to go out and do whatever needs done to the bunnies.
We had not been thinking of 'show bunnies' when we started looking at rabbits but the idea of showing them sounded like a lot of fun. I discovered that we had not missed the deadline for the Tulsa State Fair rabbit show and immediately sent in our paperwork.
Before we knew it the weekend of the rabbit show had arrived. We were excited and nervous. To my surprise, there were 1200 rabbits brought in for the show. We were trying to set our expectations low but we couldn't help but hope that we would take home the big prize of "Best in Show". We had the best time people watching. Let me tell you, there are people who are deadly serious about their rabbits. They travel all over the country with them and have special stands that they groom the rabbits on. Most of the people there were very nice and we had the privilege to visit with several of them. They told us about their breeds and where they were from. They shared what they knew and what they thought would help us. I felt so overwhelmed by their generous nature and hospitality.
Toward the end of the youth show the judges finally called the silver martens. Matthew brought his rabbits forward and placed them in the assigned cages. We held our breath. I couldn't hear what all the judge said about our rabbits due the volume of talking around us. When it was all over I had to go ask where we placed. I found out that our blue male, called a buck, had won 2nd place over all in the silver martens. 1st place is called "Best of Breed" and they go against all the other breeds in a final showdown. The 2nd place winner is called "Best of Opposite Sex", so if the winner overall was a doe then they will pick the best buck for BOS. BOS gets a big ribbon and that was the best part for Matthew. When he picked up his ribbons he was grinning ear to ear. Our rabbits took two 1st place ribbons and a 2nd place ribbon (those are different then BOB and BOS) and he had that big BOS ribbon. We had a great weekend at the rabbit show. In fact, we had so much fun that we started looking for our next show to enter.
