The Shawville 4H Association held its monthly meeting on Friday and it was headlined by a rabbit showmanship presentation. Participants were allowed to bring their rabbits to show off to their peers and learn about their long-eared pets from the visiting expert, Loraine Hamilton.

“Our motto is learn to do by doing,” said Reese Rusenstrom, this year’s president of the Shawville 4H.

There were about 20 to 40 kids and about five rabbits in attendance at the meeting, which was held at the Shawville Fairgrounds.

“There is better turnout now that . . .

restrictions are starting to lift and it’s in person meetings now,” said Rusenstrom. “It’s been a lot better this year. There’s been a lot of messages from people saying that their kids have been talking about it at school and their friends want them to join. It’s a fun place to be.”

Rusenstrom said that new members are joining the solid group of older members who are keeping the executive of the association strong.

Rabbit Showmanship

Hamilton, a teacher from Cobden, Ontario, and a leader at the Renfrew County 4H Association gave an hour-long class on rabbit showmanship.

She is a self-taught rabbit showmanship enthusiast and has led a rabbit club at the Renfrew 4H for 10 years.

During her presentation Hamilton focused on the complicated world of rabbit showmanship competitions, though she interspersed her talk with tips on how to care for rabbits and various pieces of rabbit trivia.

“I think it teaches a lot of responsibility to care for any animals, like any pet or any livestock,” said Hamilton in an interview after the presentation. “It teaches responsibility, empathy, caring and compassion. It also helps a lot with leadership with the kids being in a club. The showmanship part of it teaches a lot of discipline because you have to train your animal.”

According to Hamilton’s presentation, rabbit showmanship isn’t all about how your rabbit looks and bred, though that is important, but also heavily relies on how well the animal is trained and how much the owner knows about the rules of rabbit showmanship and the breed of their rabbit.

One funny part of the presentation came when Hamilton was talking about how to identify the gender of rabbits. One of the rabbits, whose owner thought it was a female, turned out to be a male after being examined by Hamilton.

Hamilton concluded her presentation with a quiz on facts about rabbits and was presented a bouquet of flowers by the Shawville 4H president on behalf of the club.

“I was very surprised to see how many young 4H members were attending that meeting and that’s really hopeful for the future,” said Hamilton.

For the remainder of the meeting, the club members held their formal meetings, where they took roll call, reviewed the minutes of their last meeting, discussed club finances, approved their agenda and passed resolutions.

Notably the Shawville 4H club is planning on hosting the Quebec 4H club’s rally in mid-July, which will be attended by 4H members from across Quebec.

They also discussed upcoming plans to learn about Alpacas and growing giant pumpkins in upcoming meetings.

Rabbits live for an average of 10 years and their pregnancies last for 30 days. These were just some of the rabbit facts presented at the meeting.

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