Open BOB (Cover

Best Of Breed ~Open~ 2022 ARBA Convention Reno, NV

Cheryl Loesch Pi's Witness: Self Sr. Doe

It was a humbling experience to win BOB at Convention.

I always allow myself that little dream before all of the packing, excitement and fanfare of the whole convention experience. And then I put it away in favor of enjoying the moments of the show itself. Those little thrills when you get a top 5 animal . . . a first-place animal . . . a Best or Opposite of Group animal. There’s that huge surge of hope, always tempered with a good dose of reality: there are many other wonderful animals up there that are worthy contenders. I’d watched that progression from my post as a clerk behind the table. As the judge weighed Witness—I admit I held my breath—and then was selected as first place Self Senior doe, then Best of Group. When the judges announced the Self Senior Doe as Best of Breed, I almost couldn’t take it in. My doe Best of Breed!

Pi’s Witness is a worthy doe, one of a few in my small herd. In the last few years, I’d cut back from about 50 to 20 woolies. I’ve spent the last 14 years learning the ropes of breeding, learning to plan and set individual goals for my herd, then working and honing those goals continually to try to make my animals as close to the Standard as I could. Is Witness a perfect Jersey Wooly? No. But she’s very close to the whole package that I’ve been working toward. Every once in a while, in my breeding plan, I would take a doe that had what I thought to be as close to that whole package as possible, and put her straight into breeding. I would show that doe occasionally if she was in coat, or not doing her main job in my herd.

For me, Witness was a brood doe, a doe selected to breed toward “the maximum end of weight, but still had all the attributes” I was looking for in a show animal. That description was, in fact, one that was put forward when the board considered including a brood doe in the Golden Fleece Auction this year. We thought that a good, typey brood doe would be a good addition for the auction. When I was asked to donate to the GFA, I went back and forth between two lovely does, and finally decided on Witness as the one that matched what we talked about for a “brood doe” in the GFA. It was quite a shock to hear the bidding on Witness go over 1000.00 in just a few minutes time, and I’m still overwhelmed that the final bid was $2900.00! Whenever I’ve donated an animal to the GFA, I try to give one of my best. Yes, it’s a little bit of a wrench to do that. The payoff is in seeing that animal help another breeder, often in another area of the country.

In ending this article, I want to pay a little homage to the roots of my rabbitry, the fine rabbits that my son and I started with all those years ago from Tessa and Terri Erb. And also, to all of my friends who’ve worked with me, sold, traded, or bred animals with mine in the pursuit of bettering the breed. I am grateful to all of you for the continued camaraderie, friendship and the joy we share.

~ Cheryl Loesch