Mr. Rooster and His New Flock of "Hens"

For twenty years we have raised chickens so that we could have “farm fresh” eggs for breakfast. A few months back my wife received a text from Veronica asking if my wife would like a Faverolles rooster. This rooster had been hand raised and was “very friendly.” He needed a new home where he could crow and not wake up the neighbors. We did not want fertilized eggs, so we let him live with the sheep, who lived next to the hens.

Unfortunately, somehow raccoons, skunks, or coyotes figured out how to get into the chicken coop and only one hen and Mr. Rooster survived. One night my daughter came home late and did not put the chickens away. The next morning on my way out the driveway, I saw a pile of feathers. I thought that was it: Mr. Rooster had joined his hens in the great coop above. But upon returning home that night, Mr. Rooster greeted my pickup at the top of the driveway and patiently waited for me to open my door.

Without his beloved hens, I was his new best buddy. I never knew roosters could be so smart, although I was once defeated by a chicken in tic-tac-toe. Now he waits at the top of the driveway for my truck to come home. He then follows me to the front door of the house and waits for me to come back out and feed him some scratch. Since his hens were gone, he had no reason to go back down the hill and roost with the sheep. Instead, he found some new four-legged chickens with long ears, who liked to hop around in their cages. Mr. Rooster seemed to enjoy these new hybrid rabbit-chickens and even adopted their garage as his new home. So now www.newzealandreds.com has a new mascot: Mr. Rooster. He has adopted our herd of New Zealands as his new family. He proudly flies to the top of their stacking cages to survey his dominion, and to my surprise, the rabbits do not seem to mind: no going crazy running in circles, no piggy squeals, no thumping of cage floors.

I have to admit, I don’t enjoy his nightly deposits on the garage floor, but how can I break his heart?

Yesterday, Mr. Rooster once again almost joined his beloved hens in the sky. Squawking and all sorts of strange sounds broke out on our front porch and my daughter started screaming for me to come and help. Anna, our Anatolian Pyrenees, had Mr. Rooster in her mouth. Upon being scolded, Anna  released Mr. Rooster, who now lay wet and motionless in my daughter’s arms.

Mr. Rooster recovered; flapped his wings; walked into the garage; flew to his roost; and crowed. He was content and he had a new story to share with his long-eared hens. I closed the garage door and turned out the light. Mr. Rooster was on duty and watching over his new flock; he would have something new to crow about in the morning.

Road Trip!

Old School Oorang Airedales (from Internet)

I sold some rabbits today, a breeding pair to be specific: a nice little nine-week-old broken buck with a heavy red pattern and a nice twelve-week-old red doe. The gentleman had called before to make an appointment.  I erroneously thought this was the man and son who asked for my business card at the January KRBA show. Instead, a man and his wife drove up the driveway to buy some New Zealand reds and talk rabbits for a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon.

It is people like this couple that remind me why I breed rabbits. Yes, I enjoy producing home grown meat; I even enjoy sitting back and watching my rabbits kick up their heels in the exercise pen. But the rabbits also serve as a way to meet new people and share ideas about a hobby that we enjoy.

Ramon was full of knowledge about breeding rabbits and I learned much from him. He had also purchased his foundation stock from Manuel Hidalgo. I listened as he told me about his adventures in breeding Manuel’s whites with a broken red and getting babies with all sorts of colors. One topic led to another rabbit related topic: from stacking cages to gardening with rabbit pellet compost. Like Manuel, he suggested I breed year around through the Valley heat and utilize a forty-one day breed back calendar. But the story I enjoyed most was about how he uses the red worms from his garden to go fishing. The joy in his voice was evident when he talked about taking his worms to Texas, so he could go fishing with his grandchildren.

People often ask me if I ship my rabbits via airlines. Yes, I do. But to me, the joy in purchasing a new rabbit is the road trip itself. I want to hit the road; try new restaurants; see new country; meet new people. Ramon agreed. It is not a chore, but fun to hop into the car and drive to Northern California or Oregon and visit with some breeders and have a chance to share ideas about our hobby. I used to make it a family adventure to take my Mammoth Donkey to Las Vegas so she could visit her boyfriend. After we dropped her off at the West Farm Mule Ranch, the Vegas buffets and shopping awaited. I guess I owe this love of animal road trips to my dad, who once drove the family in a Dodge Chinook Plus from California to Sparta, Tennessee so we could bring home an eight week old Oorang Airedale puppy from the legendary Mooreland Kennels .  That puppy grew into the king of the neighborhood: the bear like dog who battled the brown UPS truck on a daily basis.

At work, I often hide in my classroom so I do not have to debate the virtues of the latest reinvention in education. On TV, the nation is at war: Trump vs. anti-Trump. But when I talk rabbits with people, we are just people who share the enjoyment of breeding these funny, long eared  critters. I anxiously await the next Hackett family road trip to Reno for the West Coast Classic. My students always ask, what do I do at these rabbit shows. I say it is simple: I talk rabbits.

New Website Host, New Show Year

Kern County Rabbit Breeders Association

After more than a month, www.newzealandreds.com is back up and running. A computer crash and loss of software and files necessitated a migration from the CS5 generated website to a cloud based website at our new host: weebly.com. The process was a bumpy road and still is not complete, but thankfully, the website is now functioning.

We hope to reconnect with previous customers and hopefully meet many more in 2017.

Participation in this year’s rabbit shows has confirmed that reds are increasing in popularity and improving in quality. My family and I made the southward trek to San Diego and the ARBA National Convention for the first time. I was amazed at all the New Zealand reds. Our little rabbitry did OK for our first time: we had a buck place third in senior bucks, and we had three broken reds that were the highest placed broken reds at the show. I must admit, we did not like the caging arrangements: we have never housed our rabbits in shavings and found this method messy.

This last weekend was a first for our family’s rabbitry: we not only won our first Best of Breed, but we accomplished this twice in shows B and C. I guess we are making progress in trying to help reds be competitive against whites, blacks, and now blues. For the first time our reds beat  the other varieties of New Zealands. We have been competitive against other reds, but rarely get placed ahead of the other varieties. But wow: one senior red buck won Best of Breed in show B and in show C our brokens won Best of Breed and Best Opposite. I don’t think we will repeat these results often, but it was a nice way for the family to spend a Saturday together. I know my son was disappointed at having to stay for more judging, but my youngest continued her winning streak in the raffle and won a nice Mini Rex for her older sister.

Next stop on our show calendar is the West Coast Classic in Reno; we loved this show last year: well organized, lots of interesting vendors, and everyone was very friendly. For 2017, we will begin showing a whole new string of juniors, who are just about ready to escape to their own cages. We have retired last year’s show bunch to the breeding barn.

It you are interested in purchasing a New Zealand red or broken from us, check out our for sale pages. We will have many new additions coming soon.

Bucket Lists and the Fibber Cup

ARBA National Convention, San Diego

Bucket Lists and the Fibber Cup

Before leaving for San Diego and the ARBA Convention, I asked my senior English students to make slideshows for their bucket list projects. They were asked to come up with about ten items they would like to experience, see, or achieve before they died. The intent was to help them think about their futures and what they would enjoy doing in their adult lives. I made an example slideshow and demonstrated to them what my expectations were for their projects. I had one slide showing my desire to witness the Aurora Borealis. I also made a slide that examined my desire to win a class in New Zealand reds at the ARBA Convention.

Upon returning to the classroom, I informed my students that I would not be able to cross off an item from my bucket list. My daughter and I had earned a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth, but no firsts. A first would have to wait until the ARBA convention comes west once again. But we were happy: all of our winners had come from just two litters. Our success was proof that we could keep our rabbitry small (8-10 litters per year) and still compete at the national level. With our San Joaquin Valley summer heat, raising rabbits is confined to the air-conditioned garage, with limited space; however, this year we are jumping from three to six does and we will use five bucks.

Now that we are back home, it is time to start breeding again for the 2017 season. We hope to show at the Kern County Rabbit Breeders Association show and the West Coast Classic in Reno. Our first litters should be ready for new homes around Christmas time. Hopefully, we will have some juniors that will be competitive in Reno. We were lucky to start our breeding program with quality foundation stock from Manuel Hidalgo. We quickly learned that reds were well-known with ARBA judges for having weak shoulders, so that became our priority. A heavily patterned red broken buck from Manuel has solved our shoulder problems. We are now producing reds with good body length, big butts, and full shoulders.We have also received comments on our reds’ good color. Another goal for this breeding season is to try and select brokens for breeding stock that are as calm as our reds. For some reason our broken reds like to run in circles and squeal like pigs. Does anyone else have this problem?

On a personal note, it was fun to meet Wendall Tisher. I had read articles about his famous New Zealand reds and how he travels to rabbit shows throughout the Midwest. It was nice to talk to someone else about breeding reds. I also learned it is a small world and that Mr. Tisher was also from the world of education.

Lastly, My family would like to thank everyone involved in putting on the ARBA Convention. It was smooth running and a fun experience. We didn’t know about the RabbitCon until after we had made reservations, but next time, RabbitCon will be the goal.

Once again, we cannot update our website due to lost files on a computer that crashed. We will rebuild www.newzealandreds.com over Christmas vacation.

Website www.newzealandreds.com will reopen after Christmas

My laptop computer has crashed and rather than purchasing new website publishing software like CS5, we have decided to rebuild www.newzealandreds.com with a cloud based website design company like Weebly.

The current website will remain visible until the redesign is complete. Tentative new start date is during our Christmas vacation.

Unfortunately, our rabbit customers will not be able to see any new additions or posts until the redesign is complete.

We are sorry that we were unable to meet this year's demand for breeding trios. We held back our best bucks for ARBA national and will have 4-6 very nice bucks for sale after the October convention.

We were not blessed with many does this breeding season, and  we will start breeding our rabbits again when we return home from San Diego. Some babies should be ready by Christmas. We are going to increase the number of does we breed to 6. Hopefully, we will be able to better meet the needs of our customers during the 2016-17 breeding season.

Thank you everyone who expressed an interest in purchasing rabbits from www.newzealandreds.com

The Porterville Fair

The Porterville Fair

The Porterville Fair has come and gone. I have recuperated from early morning trips to the fairgrounds before work to feed and water my daughter’s rabbits. No more mad dashes after work to the fairgrounds to switch out fresh ice bottles for the rabbits’ cages. Everyone survived another year of overpriced fair food. In fact, although small in numbers, our little Springville 4-H rabbit project group did quite well with their rabbits: Micaela, my daughter, won junior showmanship and best of breed and best opposite with her New Zealand brokens. Mason and his brother Eric seemed to have a good time also. Eric, a mini-member, won his ribbon for participation, and his older brother placed fourth in novice showmanship and won best of show with his Joe Lugo Dutch junior buck.

Community involvement is what keeps our little fair going. There are many county fairs, but few city fairs like the Porterville Fair. Local farmers and business leaders volunteer their time and produce a wonderful experience for the entire Porterville community. Each year my daughter takes off three days from school to show her rabbits, help friends with their sheep, pigs, and goats, and ride the midway’s old favorites and new adventures. I hope the simple joys and values of the ag lifestyle stay with my daughter as she ages and goes away to college. Maybe one day she will volunteer to help a committee at the Porterville Fair or make mad dashes to the fairgrounds before work to support her future 4-H daughter.

Although I enjoy the fair each year, I miss the community volunteer groups who used to cook and serve delicious homemade food. I cannot go to the fair and experience the mouth watering, giant barbequed ribs from St. Anne’s church. Gone are the strawberries and shortcake from the Job’s Daughters’ booth. I miss saying hello to community members I have not seen since last year’s fair. Remember the funnel cake with whip cream piled high? I know new regulations and a new fairgrounds necessitated new traditions, but the fair board should work to find ways to bring back the civic groups who volunteered and profited from feeding fair goers each year. Now, we just eat before we go to the fair or wait until we leave the fairgrounds. Why pay $4 for an under cooked corn dog, when we can buy corn dogs for $1.50 at the local Shell on Highway 65.

I suppose I should cherish these fair moments, like watching our daughter try to show a pigmy goat in the small animal round robin. Next year, she will be a big eighth grader and that will probably be her last year in 4-H and showing at the fair. With sports, AP classes, and scheduling conflicts due to the implementation of career pathways, she is unlikely to be able to participate in FFA and not many 4-Hers continue once in high school.

Lastly, a thank you to all who volunteer long hours to make this community fair special and continue the tradition of the Porterville Fair. Did I mention that there were 42 meat pens entered in the Porterville Fair rabbit show? Forty-two!

West Coast Classic Rabbit Show Reno April 8-10, 2016

Wow! That was fun! Excuse the simplistic language and use of an exclamation to begin this blog, but that little, three letter “Wow!” best captures my reaction to the West Coast Classic rabbit show in Reno. We pulled our red Radio Flyer wagon, topped with rabbit cages and supplies, into the Reno Convention Center and immediately realized this was not the average San Joaquin Valley rabbit show. Rabbit cages, rabbits, people, lots of people, and vendors filled the convention hall from wall-to-wall. This was a temporary city devoted entirely to rabbits. I quickly wondered if we were all crazy to devote so much energy and resources to these furry critters. Why rabbits? I can only imagine the amount of money this convention generated, all in the name of rabbits.

But back to the main point: fun. Pure rabbit fun everywhere I looked: long eared English lops, giant French lops, fuzzy Angoras, little Lionheads, Flemish Giants, Checkered Giants, Dutch, Polish, and more. What were we all doing here in America’s “Biggest Little City in the World?” But before I could answer that question, “New Zealand blacks and brokens” were called to show table 27. From that announcement on, the show became a blur. Our judging table was in the front of the hall and our staging area and cages, neatly outlined by blue tape, were in the back. With rabbits under arms we began the rabbit shuffle: first broken junior bucks, next broken junior does, put those back and get junior red bucks. My daughter Micaela and I navigated the isles like running backs eluding NFL linebackers. Left, right, blocked by people watching judging, back around the other way. People sitting outside the blue lines, hurry back down the next isle. The Friday night show started right on time and finished on time. We were determined we would be ready for Saturday morning’s specialty.

With the Friday night specialty under our belt, we strolled in early Saturday morning confident and ready to go. Wait, 5 million English lops in both Open and Youth at show table 27, we will be here until midnight. I told my wife and daughter that we would have some down time before New Zealands would be called. My wife, who had been quietly observing this rabbit madness, said we looked like rookies: cages on the floor, supplies everywhere, and our chairs were even sticking out beyond the blue tape.  “I do not like this,” she said. So off shopping we went; the man from BunnyWood came to the rescue. With pine slats and slabs piled onto his cart, he followed us to our messy abode. With slight of hand and encouraging words, he set up our now professional looking show stand and grooming table. Amazing, now our chairs fit inside the blue tape! We were now professionals! Micaela, my daughter, came to life and started rubbing her hands and rubbing the rabbits’ coats back and forth. A little water spray here and there and our “fair” condition soon became “good” condition. When asked why she had never done this before at a rabbit show, she simply stated we didn’t have a “cool grooming table before.”

Finally, after lunch, I heard the announcement: “New Zealand blacks and brokens to show table 27.” The rabbit shuffle began once again. This time our judge was the ARBA president Josh Humphries. How cool was that? The ARBA president was judging our little juniors, and he breeds New Zealands too. Wait, what is this: “MH something, best junior red buck; MH something best junior broken buck; MH something best junior broken doe.” Those words were sweet. Our breeding program was heading in the right direction. Now we just have to take care of that “something” and improve our tattooing ability, or scrap the clamp and go with the pen.

I soon noticed something was changing, the adrenaline rush had left. The legs were not dodging and shuffling, they were just plain moving slowly. Open Show A was still to come. I told my wife that if she was tired of waiting, we could skip the Open show and go out and explore Reno. She asked if we had paid to enter Open Show A; I was doomed.  After 5,000 Cinnamons, which I didn’t even know was a rabbit breed, New Zealands were called to table 25. There we met a kindly, grandfather figure named Allen Ormand. This judge was very tall and friendly. He surprised my daughter when he engaged her in small talk about being a kid and showing rabbits. He didn’t have to do that, but I could tell he enjoyed talking with the breeders. He was a very nice man. I latter learned he was the retired fire captain for all of Salt Lake City, a true hero.

After a little contemplation, I realized why the West Coast Classic rabbit show had that “Wow!” factor. Lots of talented people worked very hard to put on this really neat rabbit show. In the end, I believe it was more than a rabbit show; it was an entire rabbit city or community. A group of diverse people from all areas of the United States came together in Reno to share a common bond with others: rabbits. Many of my students ask me, “why rabbits?” I honestly don’t know: I have memories of Pete and simpler times; I like rocking in my chair while I pet a rabbit; I just like the way they look; perhaps they symbolize simplicity and purity. I really do not know, but I know the ARBA convention will be in Del Mar next year and we already have our reservations.