Our next show: West Coast Classic April 8-10th, 2016 in Reno, Nevada AND Feeding Angoras in Spring

We are going to the West Coast Classic April 8-10th

We are going to bring four junior bucks, one junior doe, and one senior buck. Two junior bucks are FOR SALE.

Pudge will be on-site, but is not entered into competition, as he is not a show buck, but rather a fiber buck, despite his excellent body and wool! He is there to promote his upcoming litter, in which we expect and hope for all very light-colored fiber bunnies (almost pure white). Pudge has one leg, despite his being a DQ for incorrect color.

We plan to bide the time during the long weekend talking to people about ANGORAS, visiting the Northwest Angora Rabbit Association booth (angora fiber contest, garment contest, spinning demos), and spinning on our travelling spinning wheel!  Not to mention that we are entered in 4 different shows, and Evan will do showmanship.

Whew!

An update on FEEDING your bunnies & chickens in Spring, Summer, and Fall:

We feed the outdoor birds. We love to do so, as they are a very natural method of pest-control in our yard. They also bring beauty and song into your backyard, and are interesting in all seasons. We have 25 regular species that visit our yard in the Winter. The number decreases by the Summer, as some birds move up elevation back into the Sierras.

The natural by-product of feeding the birds is sunflower sprouts under the bird feeders. These used to be pesky little problems to me, and got quite thick. You can do several things with them, however! The first is to eat them yourself.

Organic sunflower sprouts under our bird feeders.

The second is to let the chickens root around under the feeders when free-ranging. And indeed, they will do this themselves without encouragement.

The third, is to pluck the sprouts and feed them to your bunnies. Sunflower seeds are on the list of foods ARBA recommends to "show condition" a rabbit up to two weeks before a show, for coat condition & flesh condition. It contains natural oils. Our little sprouts contain pieces of sunflower seed & shells, as well as the yummy sprouts. They also contain soil microbes and flora, which rabbits are supposed to get in the wild. Just pluck them and knock off most of the dirt. I feed now that they are growing nicely in good healthy clumps.

Clump of sunflower sprouts, leftover seeds, a little soil

Yum! Says Pudge