Several weeks ago, before summer heat and humidity settled in, Eric and I began renovation on the rabbit barn. It had formerly served as a small kennel for show dogs, and had stall dividers made of concrete, two by four lumber, and chain link fencing. Those dividers really got in the way, so we removed them, which was a lot of hard work. It is so nice to now have an open interior.

I ordered all new cages from Kammalop for the rabbitry, and Marion and Dwight Kamm delivered those yesterday.

I had several rabbits that needed to be registered, so Marion, an ARBA Registrar, took care of that for me. She weighed and examined each rabbit, and filled out the application forms. After ARBA receives the forms, it will take 2-3 weeks for the registrations to get processed. Some of the rabbits will be eligible for “red, white, blue” registrations, which is when every rabbit on the pedigree is an ARBA registered rabbit. After I get the registration certificates, I will mail leg papers for some of the rabbits to ARBA so that I can get their Grand Champion certificates.

I finally got around to registering mine and Georgia Schafer’s rabbitry name, “Moirai.” The name was Georgia’s idea. Back during our “first rabbit life,” we used “Quarter Bushel” because we both had Peck as a last name, and we tattooed our rabbits with “QB” as a prefix. This time around, we wanted something more artsy and fiber-craftsy. The Moirai are the three fates of mythology, who spin, measure, and cut the threads of life.

I uploaded a couple of new photos to the site’s gallery. At left is Moirai Spellbinder, my homebred doe who was Best of Breed English Angora at the national Angora show this year. At right is 7 Pine’s Chase, the buck who was BOS of one of the Cedar Rapids all breed shows that weekend. His litter sister was BOB of the same show, and second place to Spellbinder in the national show. I am grateful to his breeder, Deb Butorac, for selling him to me.

Candy Haenszel asked me for advice, when her ISP told her that after decades of doing so, they will no longer be hosting their customers’ websites. I offered to host her pages, because they are such a valuable resource, especially for information about Angora genetics. View Candy’s site at its new location here, and be sure to bookmark it.

I remembered another site that was a favorite of Angora Rabbit breeders, which was created by Mike Vincent, back in the 1990s. It was the very first website about Angora Rabbits, and was nicely designed for its time. I retrieved the site from Archive.org and have resurrected it here: The English Angora Resource.

I recently learned from Betty Chu that she allowed her website, which had also been on the web since the 90s, to lapse. I thought that was truly a shame, because it contains so much information, and is well designed by Betty’s husband Albert, for the time that it was first published. I retrieved the site from Archive.org and have resurrected it here, with Betty’s permission: Betty Chu’s English Angora Rabbits. When I have time, I will move the contents over to a contemporary, “responsive” website content management system. If you don’t already, you should follow Betty’s Northern California Angora Guild blog. She has been blogging there regularly since 2005.

Speaking of “responsive” websites, I need to move this site, AngoraRabbit.com, into a more contemporary content management system as well. I have begun researching CMS systems, but for now, there are other things that are higher on my list of priorities.

If you haven’t already seen it, take a look at my review of professional grooming scissors for shearing Angora Rabbits.