We have been very busy here at Willowbrook Rabbitry.  We have been having fun getting to a number of shows.  We have also been happy to get some of the ARBA and 4-H Youth started with their first French Lops.  We wish you all well with your babies and the breed.  Here is a picture that many of the youth lop exhibitors helped us take at the recent Hotchkiss, CO show to help illustrate the size difference in the lop breeds.  Unfortunately we did not have any Velveteens at the show, but from left to right, and biggest to smallest is the French Lop, English Lop, Mini Lop, American Fuzzy Lop and the Holland Lop.

We also have had our first litter of English Lop babies by Rossner's Camille and Rossner's Wesley.  We hope that all 6 make it to weaning.  Right now their eyes are about to open and they are all fat and sassy!  We have two more English does bred and due next month as well.

Here at the rabbitry we have also been considering a very special breed and finally decided to obtain a breeding pair of Champagne D'Argents!  They are one of the oldest breeds of domestic rabbits and have a unique feature in that they are born solid black and as they grow they start to get a ticking of white hair in their coat until they are a beautiful silver.  Here are our new breeding pair that are just babies!

 Meet our newest English Lop Buck, JAC's Caden.  We purchased him from Josh Campbell and are pleased to say that he earned 2 BOS at the March 19th Windy Plains Rabbit Breeders Double Shows and Lop Specialty.  He is now Doug's 2nd favorite! 

We really enjoyed our time at the Windy Plains Rabbit Breeders Double Show on March 19th in Garden City, Kansas!  The Kansas folks are so friendly and it was a well run, good time.  Their was also a Lop Specialty that day and our Willowbrook's "V" won Best In Show for the specialty.  Here she is with Judge Conall Addison who as always makes showing rabbits an educational and humorous activity! 

It was also nice to have some English Lop Competition for a change as well.  We are very happy that Marion Kamm is going to continue with the English Lops.  Music to our ears!  Long ones that they are-LOL!

 On the English Side of things our Rossner's Camille won three Best of Breeds that day!  She was beaten out by "V" though for the Best In Show of the Specialty.  Hopefully we will be able to breed her next month and get some babies from her.  I do have to say she still is Doug's favorite.

 On another note Judge Addison did palpate our Edens' Jersey and he said he felt 6 babies.  She is due in April and this will be our first English litter.  We are so excited.  

Well Spring must be right around the corner because these rabbits are breeding more successfully!  We currently have 10 French Lop babies in the nest box.  We expect to have some babies for sale around April 23rd.

We also have two does for sale as pets.  They are cuties!  Check out their pictures on our Sales Page.

2011 is the Year of the Rabbit under the Chinese Zodiac.  Last year was the year of the tiger.  The Year of the Rabbit is to be peaceful and prosperous!  Wishing all of you a peaceful and prosperous New Year of the Rabbit!

We here at Willowbrook Rabbitry would like to wish all our friends and family and fellow rabbit lovers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We have finally recovered from our first trip to the ARBA National Convention.  Wow-over 20,000 rabbits shown.  We had such a great time, got to see some of the rare breeds we have never seen before and met some great rabbit showing folks from all over the country and some from other countries as well.  We had two goals for this convention.  The first was to bring back our first English Lops to start showing and breeding.  Here Doug is with Rossner's Camille.  He is in love with this breed!  We came back with 2 Bucks and 3 Does and are thrilled to be starting with some great rabbits to work with.  

Our second goal was to have some of the 7 rabbits we took to show make the top half of their classes.  We exceeded that goal by having 3 of our does make the Top 10 of their classes.  Willowbrook's Penelope was 10 out of 36 Broken Senior Does.  Willowbrook's Giselle was 6th out of 24 Broken Intermediate Does and Willowbrook's "V" was 4th out of that same class.  

But the thrill really came when we got to watch our friends Walter and Shirley Sloan take Best of Opposite Sex with their Solid Doe Petunia!  Petunia was bred by Makayla Fenley and Rosie Scanlon. 

The 6 babies are a growin'!  Three are from Delilah and King and three are from Darlin' and Rascal, but Delilah is raising them all.  Two are solids and 4 are broken.  As far as we can tell at this point the two solid are Black and Liliac and the four broken are one Black, one Opal and two Chestnuts.  Hopefully they will all continue to be healthy and happy.

We had a great day at the double show in Loveland, Colorado yesterday!  We had more exhibitors than usual for French Lops for a show on the Front Range.  That was a treat.  A few of our Juniors did very well.  Our little Phillipe did quite well for his 2nd day out showing.  He got BOV and BOS in Show A.  He also got BOSV in Show B.  His sister "V" won first in her class of Broken Juniors out of 6 other rabbits.  We also so love going to Loveland because we can have great BBQ at Nordys!

It was great going to the mailbox and finding that ARBA sent us Grumpy's Grand Champion Certificate!  He is our first and we are thrilled.  Also dropped off our entry for the ARBA National Convention yesterday at the post office.  We are so excited to be going to the National Convention for the first time.  A lot of firsts around here at the rabbitry.  At the convention we will also be picking up our first English Lops-two breeding pairs from the Edens!