1. Basic husbandry - feeding, cleaning, and basic care of rabbits.
2. Breeding - includes everything from putting the buck and doe together through weaning of pre-juniors.
3. Learning the standard - reading the standard once is not enough, neither is reading it 100 times - it takes a lot of looking, feeling, and reading to start to understand our standard thoroughly.
4. Culling - after producing bunnies, it's time to apply the standard and choose the ones to keep.
5. Advanced husbandry - dealing with illnesses and more advances rabbit care issues.
6. Basic showing - how to prepare for a show, enter a show, and participate in it.
7. Advanced showing - how to contribute to the show and make it run more smoothly.
8. Herd management - keeping the herd to the right size, maintaining adequate does in production and bucks for breeding, and keeping your show string populated.
9. Advanced breeding - understanding and using concepts such as line breeding, generic does, recessive & dominant genes, and more.
10. Show production (optional) - serving as planner, show secretary, show superintendent, or worker at shows.
11. Equipment builder (optional) - building nest boxes, show coops, cages, show tables, water systems, and maybe even your barn.
12. Rabbit sales - pricing, delivery, ethics, policies, etc.
13. Computer - pedigree program, groups, and websites.
14. Leadership (optional) - serving as director or officer in a local, regional, or national club.
15. Nationals and Convention - learning to navigate the super shows.

Are you impressed with yourself yet? You should be. If you are new, are you overwhelmed? Don't worry - just take it a step at a time.

So, the next time you see someone at a show, struggling to figure out which class shows next or how to enter their rabbit correctly, try to remember all that that person is trying to learn. Step in and help out. You won't just be helping that person, you will be working to improve our hobby overall.

Laurie

¶ 11:08 AM