Makayla's Wonderful Sunday

 

 

 

On Sunday morning, Makayla is excited, "Betty, Betty, say what I got?  I am babysitting a little piglet."
 

Sleepy little piglet is the runt of the litter that gets a pet's life.

In the afternoon, Makalya says, "Betty, Big Hunk got specialty Best In Show.  I love my lucky hat!"

 

Things get even better, Makayla's Mini Lop Big Hunk gets selected as youth all breed Best In Show in show D by judge Don from VA.

Makayla has a wonderful Sunday at the California State Convention.


 

Natalie Redding's "Shear Madness" on Nat Geo Wild

Our blog readers have visited Natalie's Blogtalk radio program several times when she interviewed Randy, Allen, Eric and Betty.   Now she has a new TV series on Nat Geo Wild on cable.  

 

From model and city-dweller to farm owner and yarn-trepreneur, Natalie Redding left urban life behind to pursue her passions: breeding and raising over 200 sheep and spinning high-quality yarn from their wool. Meet the woman behind Namaste Farms.

 

Natalie working on her herd.

The program is very interesting especially for us animal lovers and fiber enthusiasts.   If your TV provider carries this channel, make sure you watch it tonight.  If not, click:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/shear-madness/

to watch selected clips.






 

Eric's French Angora Wins All Breed Best In Show in Louisiana

 

 

 

 

 

Louisiana State RBA had a wonderful weekend for the rabbit enthusiasts from all over the country.   The Best In Show winner is Eric's French Angora HGF Stunning; Eric is from PA.    The Best In Show judge is Scott from CO, Scott was judging in CA the week prior.   

HGF Stunning is also the Best In Show winner over several thousand rabbits at the Pa State Convention in early February.  See
http://ncag.blogspot.com/2014/02/erics-french-angora-wins-all-breed-best.html

It's an amazing win for HGF Stunning, she is a mama, grandma and great grandma many times over but she continues to win and to produce winning offspring.   One of her more well-known offspring on our blog is HGF Meara who is also a good mom and winning rabbit. 




 

Kendall Visits at Turlock

Kendall brings her two students to the California State Convention at Turlock.   This is the first rabbit convention that her students have ever attended.

 

Kendall says to mom judge Carol G., "Aren't Fuzzy Lops enough for you to groom, you are now raising French Angoras?  Too much work."

 

Kendall tries her hands in grooming big boy Jim.
 

Kendall concludes that grooming French Angora is quite a fun thing to do, and her student agrees.

 

The two young ladies have fun at the rabbit show.  Two new committed rabbit exhibitors in the future?

Courtney Flies from Michigan to CA

 

 

 

Betty and Courtney met at the ARBA convention at Harrisburg.  Courtney was working at her Oxy-Gen product booth when Betty spotted a picture of her English Angora being used in the booth.    Courtney lives in Michigan, she and her mother are Netherland Dwarf breeders and also a dealer of the Oxy-Gen products.


 

Arielle and her family are starting a dealership of Oxy-Gen products.  Courtney flies in from Michigan to help the set up of this dealers in CA.

 

   Courtney and Arielle are answering questions from the exhibitors.

 

Britannia Petite/Polish from UK

Randy and Allen went to UK in January to be observers of the biggest rabbit show in UK at Bradford.   On Randy's Facebook page, he posted this picture of the "Polish" being judged.  The caption says,

"The REW Polish adult buck class is I believe the largest class in the entire show, and one could argue the most competitive class in the show. Win this class and you are almost guaranteed BOB, and on a fast track to Best in Show. Randy"
    

Randy and Allen posted these photos on Facebook and declared:

"The Poles made it safe and sound from the UK! "

At the California State Convention the "Poles" made their debut in their original crate, it's located behind Randy's table.   This picture shows the other side of the same crate as the photo above.     Randy explains, "Their breeder advised me to keep them in the small crate when going to the show.   When they are taken out of the small crate, they would be so curious to see the outside and stretch their bodies.  The Britannia Petites are supposed to pose with their head stretched up. "

There were five in the crate as one of the six is expecting babies at home. 

The Polish or the Poles in UK is the Britannia Petite in the US.  Same breed, different names.



The same Britannia Petite won three Best In Show out of the four shows at the California State Convention.

Angora Judging in the California State Convention on Sunday

In show C on Sunday, judge Chris Z judges English Angora in the morning.

Judge Chris Z selects a colored senior doe as the BOB English Angora.

The BOB French Angora goes to a white senior doe.

 

Judge Allen in show D is commenting on a French Angora colored senior buck, Kendall takes down the remarks.

 

judge Allen is comparing two French Angora white senior does.



Judge Allen is very thorough, he not only blows into the Angora's coat, he pushes down the wool to have a close look at the skin and the wool condition.


For a complete list of show results on Sunday, go to:

http://angorashowresults.blogspot.com/2014/03/february-23-2014-angora-showing-at.html



 

Angora Judging in the California State Convention on Saturday

In show A, judge Kevin from AZ judges English Angora.

In show A, judge Scott from WY is comparing the best colored French Angora with the best white French Angora.   The white doe wins the Best of Breed and the fawn buck is the Best Opposite Sex of Breed.

 

In show B, judge Scott is judging English Angora with Casey being the table help.  On the table is one of the colored senior bucks.  

In show B, judge Randy is placing a French Angora colored junior doe, Julie and Casey are at the other side of the judging table.

For a list of the complete results, go to

http://angorashowresults.blogspot.com/2014/03/february-22-2014-angora-showing-at.html





 

Crowded Showroom

 

 

The California State Convention is a huge success.  The showroom is more crowded than ever.  Betty took these pictures standing at her spot to cover all directions of the main part of the showroom.   There is an area at the side of the main showroom for vendors, a separate building for the cavies, plus another building for the youth activities and the judges conference.  The following three photos only show the main showroom for rabbits.

 

 

 

French Angora Session at the Judges Conference

 

 

 

 

Betty starts the session by passing around some bags of wool samples from an English Angora and a French Angora, asking the attendees to look and feel to identify which wool sample is English and which sample is French.

While the bags of wool samples are being passed around, Betty shows the first photo that appeared in the ARBA Standard of Perfection (SOP).   In her hand, Betty shows the copies from the old ARBA SOP.   Angora Wooler was the official name in the 1934-1939 SOP, but no photo included.  In 1939-1944 SOP there was this photo shown in the slide.   Under the name of Angora Wooler there was the "English Type" and the "French Type".   The photo does not say whether it's an English Type or a French Type Angora Wooler.  This photo is believed to be the first official photo in an ARBA publication.

This photo is provided by Eric Stewart from his collection of a 1927 book about Angora.   It was written by an author in England, he used the names of "English Angora" and "French Angora" when referred to the Angoras that he saw in England and the Angoras that he saw in France and how these Angora rabbits differed thus he considered them the names of the breeds.  It's considered that the English Angora was "fancy" and the French Angora was "working mules".    However, this photo does not specify whether it was an English Angora or a French Angora.
 

In the SOP 1944-1947, the English Angora and the French Angora officially became two separate breeds.  Photo in the slide is taken from the 1966-1970 SOP.   

Betty puts a French Angora junior doe on the table.

Betty says,

It's a Friday night special, you are welcome to come to the front to touch this young French Angora and the young English Angora.  Later in the session I will ask you how your hands feel and whether there are any differences.  
 

Attendees line up to get the chance to touch.
 

Allen posts on his Facebook:

History made: Betty announces, "This is not a 'no touch' time!"

Betty is notorious for having signs of "Do Not Touch" on all her carriers.  On the table are a 3-1/2 months old French Angora doe and a 2-1/2 months old English Angora buck.      

Betty puts two "old men" on the table, one English Angora and one French Angora, both are about 2 years old.
 

The French Angora buck is getting excited, Betty has to hold him down before he does something XXX.
 

 Kathi and Jeannie are at the table checking out the two matured bucks.
 

Here are the four rabbits being touched: standing up is French Angora buck HGF Jim, on his right is white buck Chu's Ebby.   In the back are the two babies: the far left is baby English Angora buck Chu's Mackie and the broken chestnut is French Angora junior doe BCW Checker.


Some key points:

(a) All Angora should have underwool and guard hairs.  The French Angora should have more guard hairs than the English Angora but underwool is still vital.  No Angora should have more hair than wool, Angoras are wool breeds, not hair breeds.  

 

(b) The English Angora and the French Angora were originally the same breed but bred toward different directions.   The wool from the first coat English Angora and first coat French Angora are not that different; the English Angora is treasured for its first coat because it's finer and softer while the French Angora first coat with similar characteristics is considered as too soft.  

 

(c) When the wool are harvested then grow back, there will be more hairs regardless whether it's the French Angora or the English Angora.   If a French Angora still has a good amount of underwool, with the additional guard hairs from the second and subsequent coats, the texture would be considered as ideal.  Same situation in the English Angora would be considered as too coarse.     The standard is so written that the best show coat for the English Angora breed is the first coat while the best show coat for the French Angora breed is the 2nd or 3rd or ... coats. 

 

(d) The French Angora wool has a slightly bigger diameter than the English Angora wool thus easier to care for.   The finer the fiber, the harder to untangle.   If one uses an extreme example: imagine the embroidery thread vs. the rope, it's harder to untangle a messed-up ball of embroidery thread than a messed-up pile of the rope. 

Toward the end of Betty's presentation, she asked the participants about their feels of wool samples that have been passing around when the session stated.   Though there were some correct answers, most identified them incorrectly.   The French Angora wool in the bags was from the first coat but the English Angora wool in the bags was from the 2nd coat; most of the participants identified the softer wool as the English Angora wool but in fact it's the first coat French Angora wool .    The first coat wool is always softer than the 2nd or subsequent coats, regardless of whether the wool comes from an English Angora or a French Angora.  

 

California State Convention Judges Conference

The judges conference part of the California State Convention was held on Friday night, February 21, 2014.   There were 9 sessions in the conference.

Scott Rodriguez of WY teaches posing of show rabbits.

Allan Ormond of Utah discusses commercial type rabbits.  Allan had a surgery done on his feet recently but it does not preventing him from traveling to rabbit shows.

Scott Williamson's topic is disqualification.

Chris Zemny has an informative slide show of the rabbits' bone structure.  The Belgian Hare is on the left and the right is the French Lop.  The bone models are made by a breeder in WA.

Betty Chu's topic is French Angora, more photos of this session will be posted tomorrow.



Carol Green has the attention of attendees when she presents Jersey Wooly.

Allan Barr discusses "balance" of rabbits and cavies.

Allen Mesick and Lauralee Erbe put four Satin rabbits behind the curtain, attendees put their hands into each slot and write down the order of the proper Satin texture.

Cathy Szychulda's topic is the Rex coat.