sir_lops6

It all started back ten or eleven years ago. While in 4th grade my sister and I wanted to join 4-H. I started looking at the project books and I decided on taking a rabbit as my project. It seemed to be the easiest project and what could one little rabbit hurt. Well, I started by buying a $5.00 rabbit at the locla feed store and I was off and running. The first rabbit ended up being a New Zealand White and I sold him at the fair after he won second place. That Second place ribbon was all it took to get me hooked.
The second year in 4-H I talked my sister in to taking rabbits as well and we decided on Californians as our breed. The Cals stayed for a year. Are we seeing a pattern beginning to develop.
The story all changed after my sister and I went on a trip and came home to find a Mini Lop buck and a Holland Lop doe that my mother had bought for us. I instanly fell in love with the mini lop. Soon after I wanted to get Michael (the mini lop) a friend of the same breed. I bet you can guess what happened next. That began our adventure to the present.
Over the years we have stuck with the mini's. However, New Zealand Whites came back in to the picture as part of our meat pen projects. We have gone through many stages with our rabbitry. From only one cage to having a herd of close to 100 and back to the current size of about 20 rabbits.
We were forced to down size about two years ago when a dog decided he wanted rabbit for dinner. This would normally been just a some problem and we would have jumped right back in to breeding, but with 4-H done with and College beginnig I thought I would take a break. That only lasted about 5 months. We are currently breeding and culling to get back to our past success. We were lucky that a former fellow 4-Her had two does out of our old mini lop bloodlines. We are using them to try to get started back up again. We have had lots of help in getting some new stock from Karen Kuk of Washington and Jack and Judy Denney of Ohio. I am now back with 4-H as head advisor of the Showblenders Club and am preparing to help my young brother start his career in rabbits and 4-H. So that is our story that continues to grow. I hope you enjoyed our experience with the huge world of rabbits.