I'm back from the fair! Saige and Rosie will be there until Monday though. The actual show was today, I am very pleased with the results!
We showed in Open, since I'm not a member of 4-H, so my does were up against the "big boys" of the rabbit world - all the adults, rather than the youths like in my previous shows. It was a large class, of 12 Broken Junior Does.
Holly's Saige placed 2/12!!!!!
And Holly's Rosie placed right behind her, at 3/12!!!!!! 
There isn't any ribbons or trophies awarded for these placements, but I'm still very pleased with them. I am so excited about this. Neither of these does will be going anywhere for a little while. I'll be keeping both until about 6 months, and possibly breeding them. We'll see what my cage space allows. :)

In my opinion, the perfect email when inquiring about rabbits in the following:
~Your name and rabbitry name (if applicable)
~Your rabbitry website/Facebook page (if applicable)
~Where you live
~How you plan to get the rabbit
~What your purpose for the rabbit is (i.e., showing, breeding, or pet)
~What you are looking for (i.e., "senior buck", or "broken black otter junior doe", or "baby bunny")
~When you want the rabbit (i.e., "As soon as possible", "in the next 3 months")
~How you are going to house the rabbit (i.e indoor, in a hutch outdoor, in a shed)
~How much you are willing to spend ("can only spend $80 or less", or "will pay high for the right one")
If you send an email like this to me asking for a rabbit, you will be my best friend. ;)

I passed the 200th post line by 30 posts so this one is celebrate!!
Thank you so much to everyone who follows my blog and Facebook page! I really couldn't do any of this without you all. 

I can't believe the fair is only 3 days away!!!! I'm so excited. Luckily my girls are looking good, their teeth and nails are growing back in, and hopefully everything will go as planned. 
Not to mention the new bunny I get to bring home!!!! :) 
We had to tattoo Rosemary AGAIN because last time she fought it and it didn't turn out. This time, she's got a clean, straight tattoo! 
What I'll need to pack:
~Money (my rabbits are already payed for, but while I'm there I'm going on rides and getting food)
~Lunch (all my family's allergies prevent us from eating out)
~Rabbitry binder
~Brushes
~Pedigrees
~Feed
~Hay
~Treats
~Signs (you'll want to know which bunnies are mine!)

Stop by and see us! I'll be by the bunnies at noon during the fair, and at 10 AM for check in. I'll be in the HOLLY'S HOLLANDS RABBITRY T-shirt (gray with purple lettering), and I'd love to meet you or if we've already met, chat with you!

"If you are starting out, you may have heard of line breeding rabbits.  Perhaps you’ve seen a “line breeding chart”  and perhaps it didn’t make much sense.  When I started in rabbits I often heard, “you’ll do best to line breed”,  but it was a long time before I realized the value of line breeding.  Now that I have developed my own lines in two breeds, I think I understand it better.  I have not made an outcross or purchased an animal for breeding in years, and yet my herd’s condition and show records continually improve.

What is line breeding?
Line breeding is a careful process of breeding closely related animals, in an effort to improve individual traits in your rabbits.

How does a “line” begin?
All great lines start with a few good rabbits.  The breeder breeds these rabbits together and keeps the best offspring.  They breed the offspring back to the parents and then those second-generation offspring back to the parents and grandparents and to each other, and so on, always selecting the strongest pairs and keeping only the best kits.  As time goes on, the herd branches out.  The rabbits get more and more distantly related as the foundation stock gets pushed farther and farther back on the pedigree.    Then what often happens is that the line produces an exceptional buck that the breeder uses on all their does, and the process begins again.

Why should you line breed? 
Line breeding is all about consistency.  If you want long-term success with your animals, line breeding is your best bet.  Sure, the occasional outcross may bring you a winning rabbit, but such an animal rarely breeds true (that is, consistently produces offspring as good or better that itself.)  The key that I think people often don’t realize is this: that rabbits can carry recessive traits for fur, type, and condition as well as for color!  These recessive traits might be good, and they might be bad.  If you consistently mate rabbits of similar backgrounds, eventually all the good and bad traits contained in a line will surface.  The breeder can utilize the rabbits with good traits and reject the rabbits with bad ones.  Eventually (at least, in theory), you should be able to produce consistently good animals without having many surprises crop up in your litters.  The other advantage to line breeding is that your will learn how rabbits in your line should look at various ages.  Kits of some lines develop faster than others, and by knowing what you can expect from your growing juniors, you can cull at an earlier age.

Having a unified line, where all rabbits are fairly similar, gives you the opportunity to tackle problems one at a time.  If you have a barn full of animals from different lines, they will show many different strengths and weaknesses.  But if you have a barn full of related animals, most of them may have thin ears, but they may also all have full hindquarters.  Then you don’t need to worry about correcting hindquarters on some and ears on others, but can set the goal, “I want to improve ears on my line”, and concentrate on that.  You get what you breed for, if you have patience—you really do.

The right way to line breed.
There’s a right and a wrong way to do everything, of course, even to line breed rabbits.  It can lock in bad traits as well as good ones.  Beware of too much inbreeding, that is, of mating rabbits so closely related that they lose vitality and disease resistance.  Also, there is some danger of going “barn blind”, and, for instance, being so used to full hindquarters that you let it slip. It helps to have a friend evaluate your animals sometimes and let you know what they think.  Always select for healthy stock.

The right time to outcross.
Sometimes, yes, “outcrossing” or breeding to an unrelated rabbit is the right thing to do. Perhaps you’re having trouble breeding out a certain fault, or perhaps your herd is becoming too inbred and losing vitality.  When you outcross, choose a rabbit (if possible) not only with strong traits to offset your faults, but from a long line of rabbits with those strong traits.  Breeders sometimes say, “you ought to buy rabbits, not pedigrees”, and while I agree that a good line can produce a poor animal, a good animal from a good line is the smartest choice of all.  Remember that a buck will go farther to impact your line than a doe—for obvious reasons.

The first generation of outcrossed babies may or may not be all that you hoped for.  Remember that the rabbit from the new line carries recessive characteristics that might clash with your line’s genes.  But take the best of those F1 babies back to your line, and soon you should see results.

Be patient in your line breeding.
Consistent winners are bred, not bought.  Line breeding takes time—but not too much time before you see results.  It takes patience, wise management, a keen eye, and a healthy environment, but with these things you should get there, sure enough.  A judge told me once that bringing your herd from average to good isn’t so hard if you know what you’re doing.  From good to great is a larger step.  Line breeding will help you get there."

This article is an excerpt from “A book About Bunny Colors: The Practical Breeder’s Guide to Rabbit Coat Color Genetics.”   Written from a breeder’s perspective, the book is designed to help every breeder grasp a working knowledge of rabbit coat color genetics. Now you can use the knowledge of rabbit color genetics to your advantage, and no longer feel like its victim!

If you want to be a responsible Holland Lop breeder, producing quality rabbits and making a bit of money on the side, you'll have to go through a lot of work, do a ton of research, and take a whole day to spend at a show, among other things. 
Being a rabbit exhibitor and responsible breeder takes a lot of work, care, stress, ect. It's not very easy at all. 
My mom has been going to shows with me and just this last time we went, last month, she seemed to really understand what I'm trying to do, and how hard I have to work and how much I have to think and learn still. She seemed to start to understand how complicated and crazy showing rabbits can really be. It only took her over a year. ;)

To be a good and quality Holland breeder/exhibitor, you need to make tough decisions, have a good eye for the "perfect" Holland (which I don't believe exists), and study, study, study!

Breeding and exhibiting rabbits, especially Holland Lops, is tricky, tough, and competitive. If you want to win continually, it'll take many litters, many sales, many years, and hard, hard work. 

I just wanted to make this post because in the older book Learning about Nature through Pets, published in 1971, there's a rabbit section, and in that rabbit section, a lot of "funny" things stated about the animal. Since this book is so old, it's sometimes fun to see how fact - sometimes, only theories - change as the world advances and rabbits become so much more popular as a pet animal.

1. Pretty much throughout the rabbit chapter, it often states (very clearly), that rabbits do not bite. They will kick if they feel threatened, but apparently in the 70s at least, rabbits don't use their teeth to cause bodily harm. This is not true anymore, and I'm doubtful that it ever was. My house rabbit can prove that to you. She's such a stinker. Rabbits bite just as much as they scratch - if they feel threatened, or scared, or want your attention, or even by accident if they are just trying to groom you. 
2. "Rabbits enjoy a treat of bread soaked in milk. They also like peanuts." (60). Rabbits also like carpet, cake, and foam flip-flops (at least my naughty Elsie does), but that doesn't mean we should feed it to them like it's healthy and should be part of their daily diet! Some breeders do feed bread. Most feeds have everything in it that bread would have, so that's fine with me. But soaked in milk?! That doesn't even make any sense. Any nut and corn product can cause digestive issues and is never recommended in a rabbit's diet.

There's a lot more falsity in the book that I won't dig into right now. It's a funny book, at least the rabbit chapter! 

Next week at the Evergreen State fair I'll be bringing a new doe into the herd! Meet Bramblehedge's X1, "Hazelnut"! Isn't she a cutie! She's only 4 months old on Saturday so it will still be a couple months until she can breed. I think she has several qualities that will increase the overall quality of my herd! Plus with Gracie going I didn't want to produce just torts, so I hoped to find a quality doe to replace her in an "other" color. 

Hazel's Strengths:
BODY
Strong, wide HQ
Great shoulders
Bone
Good curvature to her head
Width in her chest
Width between the eyes

Hazel's Weaknesses:
Long ears
No crown definition 
Poor crown width/length
Length in front limb, though not terrible

With Lance they can't outproduce themselves that much, so I will be getting a new buck to replace him hopefully by the end of the year. 

Gracie's babies are 4 weeks old and the cutest little things ever!!! I am just loving them! They are all already pending. I have someone coming up to reserve our two fuzzies tomorrow (they are always the first to go!), and someone else is going to be reserving one of our other babies soon. Our little frosty doe will be hanging out for a while, and our only buck will be going to a friend. 

Speaking of the little frosty doe, I can't believe she got wry neck (head tilt)!!! It really astonishes me because I've had so much go right for so long, I almost didn't expect what could really go wrong....and it's all happening at once. 

It's a bit bittersweet to think that this is Gracie's last litter. All her babies have been the sweetest I've ever produced. But I'm excited for the new changes that are coming to the rabbitry, and for Gracie's new life with my cousins next month. I know she's really going to love being a spoiled pet, getting all the loving attention she deserves.

I DO have some super exciting news I'm pumped about but I'm going to wait to share until I get some stuff finalized.... ;).

I still have Sweetpea for sale too and she's just a little darling! She'll make a great addition to anyone's family! See her on my For Sale page!