Judging at ARBA Convention

Judging this year at Convention started a day earlier than usual, this year it started bright and early at 8 am on Sunday morning.

One of the more frustrating aspects of judging day is the table line up. Breeds with very large classes of rabbits such as the more popular breeds such as Mini Rex, Holland Lops, Netherland Dwarfs and so forth usually are first up so the judges can get classes of well over 100 rabbits examined. Its is a long and tedious process for the honerable judge, some breeds with large amounts of entries will have two or more judges in order to expediate the process.

My bunny friend and I were told that Jersey Woolies, the breed she raises were one of the breeds up at 8 am, so we rose bright and early to get to the showroom on time so she could do some last minute grooming and be ready to run her rabbits and watch the judging. I didn't know when Rhinelanders were going up but was under the impression that they would be judged mid-day so I was able to kill time by doing some last minute grooming on some of my Rhinelanders.

Unforunately the host club did not arrange for table space for woolies which was a big mistake as the breed has a large amount of entries. It was very frustrating to have to wait for table space for the breeds and both breeds didn't get started til around 3 pm.

Caleb Thomas was the judge for Rhinelanderes this year, I volunteered to assist with writing comment cards for the youth entry and really enjoyed watching Caleb judge the bunnies. The youth had a truly outstanding group of Rhinelanders on the table, they should all be very proud of their beautiful animals!

The above photo is in the youth showroom, what a great crowd of people watching the judging!

Caleb was an excellent judge! He took his time to look over each rabbit thoroughly, he gave each rabbit even the lower placing bunnies detailed comments that I did my best to write down on the comment cards in case the youth were not present to watch the judging.

These were the top 4 rabbits in the youth show, all 4 were gorgeous animals that truly represented the written standard for the Rhinelander breed!

This was a very handsome and flashy junior that really had amazing table presence.

This was the BOS winner in youth, congrats!

And this was the BOB winner! Congrats!

After youth judging wrapped up it was time to venture over to the open showroom to start judging the 97 Rhinelanders entered. At first there was some table confusion with the American Chinchilla folks but it was sorted out after a short delay. The open Rhinelander classes were deep and the quality was impressive overall. Here are some open exhibitors with a large class of senior bucks on the table in front.

For the open show I ended up doing both the writing for the comment cards and the control sheet. Its very difficult to this job alone and I did my best to still make the comment cards detailed while not falling too far behind Caleb as he judged the classes.

Caleb checks over each bunny to make sure they're the right sex and have no obvious DQ's, Rhinelanders are a breed that do not DQ for a rabbit having one or more colored toenails.

Caleb lets a junior Rhinelander try the table out

Some of the bunnies waiting in the show coops to be judged.

Rhinelanders are fast and curious, its always fun to watch them strut their stuff on the table.

Go bunny, go!!!

The best way to evaluate Rhinelanders is to let them run and to stand away from the table like Caleb is doing to evaluate how they track and how they carry themselves.

And finally at around 10 pm at night after a very long day for all the Rhinelander folks the judge picks his winner, BOS winner Evelyn Cunningham with her jr. buck

And BOB winner Evelyn Halsey with her jr. doe

Congratulations to all the exhibitors on their placements and wins! I was very impressed with the quality of the Rhinelanders on the table and had a great time writing even if I was exhausted by the end. A huge thank you to Caleb for doing such a great job judging our bunnies!!