00:00 - Good afternoon. Thanks for coming out to the 4HFFA youth rabbit show at the

00:06 - Bloomsburg Fair. My name is Jesse Rumburger and I'm from Dauphin County which is

00:12 - about an hour and a couple minutes south of here and we are going to start

00:21 - off with youth meat pens. So if the children,

00:26 - the youth want to bring them up will

00:29 - get them weighed and inspect it and then we'll kind of go over the judging of them.

00:38 - I try to comment a little bit as we go

00:41 - through. Now tell you what we're looking for.

00:44 - Obviously it's a little tough with a handheld mic and handle in the rabbits.

01:00 - So once they get started. So while the kids are bringing them up for

01:06 - anybody out in the crowd or I mean FFA, 4H leaders, etc. Everything's

01:11 - governed by the American Standard Rabbit Breeders Association.

01:14 - If you are interested, it's right out 80 and Knox PA. There is a museum out there.

01:19 - You ought to go check it out. You can go in there and see the history of the rabbit

01:24 - industry and that headquarters is not just for Pennsylvania but it's also for

01:28 - the all United States and global country. So especially if you're head in

01:33 - west on 80, plan to take yourself a visit to the headquarters. So I believe

01:40 - there's five pens, one, two, three, four, five. Once they all get up, basically

01:46 - there's a standard of perfection or a guide that we go by. So here's what we're

01:49 - looking for. We need three rabbits that are 10 weeks of age and younger.

01:55 - They need a way between three and a half and five and a half pounds. They all need

02:00 - to be the same breed and variety. Okay. So we're looking for uniformity.

02:06 - We're looking for type. Most importantly, we're looking for meat condition, right?

02:13 - It's three rabbits. So you want triplets. They all want to look identical.

02:17 - If you have two that are great and one

02:19 - that's weak or one that's strong and two are

02:22 - weak, that's not uniformity. So think about this. If I had two other brothers

02:27 - that just looked like me, that's what uniformity is. Okay. So this is a pretty

02:34 - tough project because it starts technically 14 weeks ago with breeding.

02:40 - The rabbits kindle in 30 days. So once they kindle, then you have 10 weeks of growth

02:46 - and you need to get them from zero, which is a couple ounces all the way up to

02:51 - 5.8 ounces. If it's 5.9 ounces, you get disqualified. You're overweight.

02:58 - If you are under 3.8 ounces, so it would be 3.7 ounces, you're disqualified. So when

03:05 - you start thinking about youth, the market projects that we have here, it's not

03:09 - just one steer, one pig, one goat, right? It's three animals that you are

03:15 - constantly focused on feeding on a daily basis and making sure they grow at the

03:20 - same rate. So it's a fun project. It's an accelerated project and it's a

03:26 - rewarding project. So after we get done placing these animals, don't be afraid

03:31 - to come back Friday with the youth livestock sale. I believe it's in this

03:36 - building, isn't it? It is in this building and then all the youth will be

03:40 - selling their animals. Whether it's big beef, dairy beef, you know, swine, pigs,

03:45 - sheep, and rabbits, right? Goats are in there. So you can come back at the end of

03:49 - the fair. So meet competitions as growing super fast within the youth and it's not

03:56 - just here at the Bloomstard Fair. It's all over the United States. There's heavy

03:59 - meat king competitions. The next largest one in the state of Pennsylvania is at

04:03 - the Pennsylvania Farm Show. You're probably going to see about 40 to 50 pens there.

04:08 - So again, kids are starting to breed right now for that project. So once

04:13 - we get started, I'm going to put the microphone down. I'm going to weigh each

04:17 - rabbit to make sure they are consistent weight.

04:20 - I'll write down the weight. And then

04:22 - we'll go and evaluate it. Once I have them picked out, I will then place them

04:28 - accordingly and describe the faults, the positives, etc. What they should be

04:32 - looking for. So I'm going to put the mic down and we'll get started.

04:46 - Okay. So pen number, pen number 15.

05:07 - So we are 4.4 ounces. Okay. We need to inspect it now.

05:15 - So we'll turn the rabbit over. Gotta have good teeth. Gotta have four toenails

05:20 - on the front. Four toenails and a, I mean, one two claw and four toenails. Four on

05:26 - the back. We also need to make sure that we have a good straight tail and then

05:32 - there's no abscesses on the bottom. I'm going to put this one back. Just make sure.

05:45 - So here, this is 4.8 ounces. And we're going to do the same thing all over again.

06:04 - Flip the rabbit over. Check his toenails.

06:25 - Very good. Well, this would come in at 4.13 ounces. So this pen here is 4.

06:36 - 4 ounces. 4.8 ounces and 4.13 ounces.

06:39 - So fairly consistent in the uniformity. There's

06:47 - about a quarter pound of gap and more like a half pound of gap. Okay. Excellent.

07:01 - Slide down. This pen here is 10.13. This is another New Zealand white pen. This one

07:15 - lays four pounds. We're going to flip it over inspection. If for some reason, it

07:19 - has bad teeth, maybe a broken toenail,

07:23 - mismatch toenail, missing toenail, broken tail,

07:27 - any abscesses, it would be disqualified.

07:29 - That means it would be taken out of the competition

07:33 - because it didn't meet the grade of the animal.

07:35 - As we're doing it, what we're doing is

07:38 - we're looking for good shoulders, midsection, hindquarter.

07:40 - We also want to see it filled

07:45 - in the lower hindquarter and we also check out

07:49 - the condition of coat. So I want to set this one right here.

07:56 - This one on the scale. 4.

07:58 - 2 ounces. Okay. You guys watching this, the same thing.

08:21 - Just do a quick inspection of it.

08:23 - Teeth toenails. Last one. If you want to move

08:29 - that move, then you can. 4.5 ounces.

08:32 - So when you're looking at consistency, this one's

08:36 - very consistent. It's within five ounces of one another.

08:42 - So a little bit more consistent.

08:57 - And weight versus the first pen we looked at.

09:01 - Okay. Excellent. Going to slide down to the

09:26 - silver fox, pen number, 14, 3.10.

09:34 - This is particularly, you definitely don't want to see any white toenails on this.

09:52 - They should be a darker toenail. 3.9 ounces.

10:18 - Kind of shift this way now. Kind of shift this way now.

10:37 - This is pen 12.4 pounds.

11:12 - 4.5.4.5.4.5.

11:28 - There's something that you can see the point system of of how it works.

11:51 - 3.12.3.12. So this one here is about 9 ounces slightly different

12:17 - than one another. This is pen 11.

12:37 - Okay. This is the Californian breed. 4 pounds.

13:10 - 4.12.

13:14 - So this particular pen, we are about 3/4 of a pound already different than weight.

13:33 - So a little bit spread in the scale of uniformity a

13:38 - little bit, like to see a little bit closer.

13:59 - 0.08. So this is the last rabbit we get to inspect. And then what we're going to do is

14:05 - we're going to go through and now check out meat qualities.

14:10 - We're going to start comparing

14:23 - them to one another. To the touch, they should

14:26 - be hard like a brick, very firm and flesh.

14:30 - They all should be very smooth over the spine.

14:33 - They should carry the loin from the shoulders,

14:35 - the mid section all the way down to the lower hind quarter.

14:38 - That's what we're looking for.

14:45 - Meat quality. Basically, this is 100% white meat.

14:48 - So it'd be like the breast of the chicken.

14:51 - This is a great example right here.

14:53 - See how full that carry is all the way down to the table.

14:56 - You want it very full all the way in the

14:59 - lower hind quarter. This one here has a little

15:03 - bit of being a little pinched in that lower

15:06 - hind quarter lacking fullness of that lower hind quarter.

15:32 - Check out these.

15:37 - [inaudible]

16:28 - Here's a pin that's very uniformed in shape.

16:31 - They all are right around the same size.

16:34 - They're all about the same width in the mid

16:37 - section, the hind quarter, the lower hind quarter.

16:40 - There's a lot of consistency in this pin.

16:42 - You can see how uniform they are. That is something

16:44 - that we're looking for is consistency and uniformity. A little bit softer and flesh.

16:50 - I'd like to see a little bit more firmness,

16:53 - but still a good example of what we're looking

17:17 - for in a meat pin. Now I got some white New Zealand's.

17:22 - These are very firm to the touch.

17:37 - [inaudible]

17:45 - Pretty nicely uniformed. They're all about spear the same and width of the shoulders.

17:50 - With the mid section, they're nicely balanced animals.

17:53 - You don't see any holes or pockets in there.

17:55 - You can see how they're all nicely filled into that lower hind quarter.

17:59 - Very good condition of coat. That's what you're looking for. Balance and uniformity.

18:25 - Nice bend there.

18:27 - [inaudible] [inaudible]

18:54 - [inaudible]

19:06 - This one here, this is a very nice pin and firmness.

19:10 - They're all a little bit very nice and firm.

19:14 - You can see, let's look at the weights here a second, 15. This one here, there is

19:20 - a half pound between weights. You're going to

19:22 - see one that appears to be a little bit bigger

19:25 - than the other one. You can probably pick it out. Real wide loin, fuller in the lower

19:31 - hind quarter. This was a little bit narrowing.

19:33 - Not quite as wide as that other one.

19:35 - Again, real wide again and not quite as full in that lower.

19:38 - When you start looking at consistency, we have two really developed ones and then

19:43 - one's just a tick behind the other one.

19:46 - Again, definitely showing some of the best meat

19:49 - qualities, but just slightly off here a little bit.

20:06 - We're going to put that one here.

20:06 - Let's do some judging here and do the comments.

20:08 - For the parents, grandparents, friends, and family out

20:11 - in the crowd, we basically did our placement.

20:14 - All the work was done for the kids before

20:17 - they came the show. Now it's the work on the

20:19 - table that needs to be compared and that's

20:22 - really what my job is. You don't realize how much work it gets to get to this point.

20:27 - Kudos to every kid to be able to be able to put

20:29 - meat pens on the table. It is a fun, rewarding

20:33 - project and I encourage every kid or youth

20:37 - or child for HFFA member to be able to do it. We're going to start off here with this

20:47 - fifth place pen. It's ten number eleven, ten number eleven.

20:52 - We got two really nice animals

20:55 - in here and then we got one that's just a little bit of a tick behind the other ones.

21:02 - When I say that, we got very muscular, smooth

21:06 - animals, except there's one in here that's

21:10 - just slightly, really rough over the spine. It's just not quite as full in that lower

21:17 - hindquarter. If we would have one other one that would look like these two, it would

21:22 - be well into the upper end of the class. Nice job. Keep up the good work. Definitely

21:39 - a nice Californians. Pen number four. It's going to be a lot twelve. Pen twelve, okay?

21:51 - Brundiargence. And when you pull this pen out, you're going to see that they're all

21:57 - very similar. They definitely have that meat

22:01 - quality, strong shoulders and mid-sections,

22:04 - but they start failing a little bit in that hindquarter and the lower hindquarter.

22:07 - I like to see a little bit more depth of that loin in

22:09 - the upper hindquarter. I like to see a little bit more consistency of that coat.

22:14 - So again, nice pen. They just keep on gradually improving

22:25 - and overall meat quality. Pen number three is going to be the silver foxes.

22:32 - I really do like this pen a lot. Obviously, that's

22:35 - why it's in third place. If you want to talk

22:38 - about uniformity and balance, nice pen of balance, they are very consistent.

22:42 - Where they lose to the first and second place is firmness

22:46 - of flesh, overall width of the loin and

22:49 - depth of the loin. As for uniformity, nice job.

22:53 - Well done. Congratulations. Second place.

22:59 - It's going to be a pen of New Zealand and

23:01 - there's two pens. Second place is actually going

23:03 - to be this pen right here, which is going to be pen number fifteen. And the biggest

23:08 - thing that I'll say about this pen is these are very firm and flesh. You have two that

23:13 - look very similar to one another.

23:16 - But the third one is what pulls this pen down.

23:20 - Strong and shoulders. This one is about a half pound

23:23 - difference in the other one. You can truly see that in the width of the loin.

23:27 - Very wide, a little bit narrower, real wide.

23:30 - It's also the fullness of that lower hindquarter.

23:32 - Really full, really full into that lower and into that flank.

23:35 - This one's just a little bit pinched in that lower hindquarter. I like to see

23:41 - a little bit more fullness. Good condition of coat.

23:45 - Just slightly, slightly soft and texture.

23:49 - And then our grand champion and our first

23:51 - place pen is going to be this pen right here,

23:55 - which is pen number thirteen. Congratulations.

23:59 - It might be slightly smaller than the second place pen.

24:04 - But when you really start comparing to uniformity, overall condition of

24:10 - flesh, strength of the shoulders, midsection

24:12 - and hindquarter, this is the trio that you

24:15 - want to look for. All equal in the shoulders, all equal in the midsection.

24:19 - Really good width. We're talking probably about three

24:22 - and a half, four inches of width to them.

24:23 - And you're actually talking about an inch of

24:26 - depth to that loin. Carry is all the way down

24:28 - to that lower hindquarter. They are all nicely filled into that lower hindquarter.

24:31 - Their firm, they feel like a mini brick and their

24:35 - condition of coat is great texture and density.

24:42 - So well done. Congratulations. Grand champion

24:46 - meat pen right here. So please grand champion

24:51 - and the reserve champion, please stay upright

24:55 - for banners and pictures. Okay. Congratulations.

24:59 - Well done. Nicely done.

25:29 - [Music]