00:00 - So we're here in the rabbit department at the York state fair

00:04 - beside me here

00:05 - I have

00:06 - meat pens these are shown by our four h and ffh exhibitors

00:10 - meat pens consists of.

00:13 - Three rabbits that are ten weeks old

00:16 - and they're judged on

00:18 - for quality

00:19 - and meat quality

00:21 - and basically the goal for these guys is that they are as uniform

00:27 - in

00:27 - Type

00:29 - and in size army pens all have to be within

00:31 - three and a half pounds to five and a half pounds

00:34 - however we want

00:36 - all three rabbits to be as close in weight as possible.

00:41 - Rabbits are judged a lot on muscle composition

00:44 - which

00:45 - would be

00:46 - overall how well muscled they are and also how close they are to their breed standard

00:50 - which for our new Zealand's here.

00:54 - These rabbits are sat with their head low to the table

00:58 - with their butts scrunched up where they want to have a slow rise where they kind of

01:03 - look like a mountain over the back it's actually.

01:07 - Really cool when you get a nice one sat up for you but.

01:12 - Or meat pens here

01:13 - we have seven of them here

01:15 - we just did our judging today we have our grand champion and our reserve banners here

01:21 - and.

01:25 - We have mostly new Zealand's here today we do have one californian meet pen right here

01:31 - those are the two most common meat breeds of rabbits here in the united states

01:37 - are new Zealand being number one and our californian being number two

01:42 - and this is big because

01:43 - of the rate that they grow at

01:45 - they grow at a much faster rate than other breeds of rabbits which gives us a

01:50 - higher yield and a faster production line.

01:53 - For rabbit meat.

01:57 - Now we're going into our

01:58 - other aisle behind our meat pens

02:01 - we have some more new Zealand's here these are single fryers.

02:05 - Basically

02:07 - these are the same age as our meat pen bunnies

02:10 - and the same weight range as army pants

02:13 - however it's just a single rabbit instead of our pen of three

02:17 - were

02:18 - so they're not judged as much on.

02:21 - Uniformity since it's only one rabbit

02:24 - they're judged on breed type alone and also.

02:28 - Really emphasizing that muscling since this is a meat

02:32 - rabbit and this is the age where they would be butchered.

02:38 - Again we're seeing a lot of new Zealand's here.

02:41 - But here we have a couple of different colors and

02:43 - feelings.

02:45 - This one here is actually a Chestnut variety.

02:50 - Here are some blacks.

02:55 - And in our

02:56 - aisle behind us here

02:58 - we have more new Zealand's however these are our breeding classes so

03:03 - these guys here would be.

03:05 - Our breeding sock that we would be using to breed for meat pen bunnies here.

03:12 - I would be willing to bet that quite a few of these here actually are parents

03:16 - to the meat pens that are shown here.

03:20 - This is

03:21 - judged differently a little differently than meat rabbits where they would be judged

03:26 - by their class which would be their age and their sex

03:30 - so right here in front of us we have a senior do.

03:34 - So they would judge the senior do class and then the first place of each class

03:38 - would compete for the best of variety so that is the color of the rabbit right here

03:42 - we have a white new Zealand in front of us.

03:45 - After they are selected by class they then

03:49 - go against all of the other colors all the other varieties

03:53 - for a best of breed.

03:55 - Then after our best of breeds are all selected they all compete with each other

04:00 - for best in show

04:02 - so there are fifty three breeds accepted

04:06 - in the American rabbit breeders association.

04:10 - So in a full show where every breeder's represented

04:13 - at the end for best in show we would have fifty three total breeze.

04:16 - I believe here we have around twenty breeds represented.