4-H rabbit members prepare for county fair
<p>Madeline Snell, left, and Shayna Burgess, right, work together to clip a rabbit's nails during a 4-H meeting in Plains.</p>
PLAINS - With the Sanders County Fair approaching, 4-H members from multiple categories are starting their weekly meetings to prepare their animals and work on their showmanship. The 4-H Rabbit members in particular are getting ready for the big three day event every Tuesday evening from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the rabbit barn of the Sanders County Fairgrounds.
Junior Leader Shayna Burgess, who has been in the rabbit program for seven years, said, “We usually start our meetings around March, meeting once a month, then June and July every other week, and once a week in August, since it is close to the fair.”
Last Tuesday, Burgess and one other member worked in the barn, where the rabbit exhibition will be held.
Burgess worked with Madeline Snell in the barn, clipping Snell’s rabbit’s nails, and discussing the process of exhibiting at the fair.
Snell, age 14, and a six year veteran of 4-H, is trying animal exhibition for the first time this year. Snell’s rabbit, named Karol, which she got for free through the 4-H program, is an all black polish senior.
“I wanted to get in since I’ve been doing sewing for six years, I’m still doing sewing, but since I have been doing it for six years I wanted to do something different,” Snell said.
As Burgess helped Snell clip Karol’s nails, she eloquently described the 4-H rabbit meeting’s goals for the practices to help everyone be ready for the fair.
“We start out by getting to know our kids, and we see what they want to know about rabbits, and the basics of that stuff... From there we increase knowledge based on the ARBA (American Rabbit Breeders Association) show book and then we go up to showing and interviews.”
During the fair, many of the ribbons the members of the 4-H program can receive come from their ability to conduct interviews with judges. An emphasis during the weekly meetings in August is to train members on how to express their knowledge to the judges.
Burgess said a 4-H member should be able to, “...Show the body parts, tell about it, show the points it has, the body type, basically everything about your rabbit.”
Snell, who has enthusiastically taken on the challenge of raising a rabbit and showing it for the first time in the fair, said she knows she already wants to do it again next year.
“I’m having a lot of fun doing it... I think he (Karol) is the cutest rabbit of all of them,” said Snell as she held her rabbit.