Does Your Rabbit Have (a) Class?

My favorite part of raising rabbits was showing them.  I always enjoyed the show environment and I’m sad that I’ve spent so much time away from it.  I would like to talk today about some basic show terminology.  When registering your rabbit for a show, you’re going to be asked which class the rabbit should be entered in.  This can be confusing if you are unfamiliar with the show system.  Let’s try break it down.

If I were to register my rabbit Dante in a show, I would say that he is a Havana Black Senior Buck.

Havana Black Senior Buck

Here, “Havana” refers to the breed of the rabbit.  Other examples of a breed would be Netherland Dwarf and Jersey Wooly.  This is the most general category a rabbit can fall under.

Havana Black Senior Buck

The next category we look at is a bit more complicated because it depends on the breed.  This category (“black” in the example above) refers to the coloring of the rabbit.  Depending on the breed, the coloring can be divided up by variety, group or classification.

A variety is a specific color of rabbit.  Havanas are shown in varieties, hence me using “black” to describe Dante’s class.  Other varieties would include blue and chocolate.  A group is a set of varieties with similar characteristics that get shown together.  For example, Jersey Woolies are shown in groups.  When the agouti group is called to the show table, chestnut, chinchilla, opal and squirrel varieties would all come up at the same time.  Lop and angora breeds are typically shown in classifications.   This system of categorizing coloring brings together even more colors to the table at the same time.  Angora breeds are shown as either “white” or “colored” whereas lops are shown as “solid” or “broken”.  There are also some breeds that only have one acceptable color, and therefore all shown together.  In this case, the variety would be omitted all together.  The Rhinelander breed only has one color pattern and are thus are not divided by coloring.

Havana Black Senior Buck

I know it seems like a lot of information so far, but I promise that it will get easier from here.  “Senior” refers to the age of the rabbit.  There are four possible categories: pre-junior, junior, intermediate, and senior.  A pre-junior class would only be seen in larger breeds and described as a rabbit under three months of age.  Junior refers to a rabbit under six months of age (or between three and six months for larger breeds).  An intermediate class is only seen in larger breeds of rabbit, where time to maturity is longer than in smaller breeds.  A larger breed rabbit between six and eight months would fall into this category.  A senior is a rabbit over six months (for smaller breeds) or eight months (for larger breeds).

Havana Black Senior Buck

The final classification is the sex of the rabbit.  Buck refers to a male rabbit and doe is a female rabbit.  That was easy.

Here are some additional examples of show classifications:

American Fuzzy Lop Solid Senior Doe

Palomino Golden Intermediate Buck

Dwarf Hotot Junior Doe

Now that you’re a pro- what’s your rabbit’s show class?

Peggy