Susquehanna County Teen Takes Ribbons with Rabbits

Top photo courtesy PA Department of Agriculture / Above photo and story submitted by Borderline 4H

On Friday Jan. 7, Cassie Marvin (above) represented Borderline Livestock 4-H club and Susquehanna County 4-H at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Rabbit Show. She exhibited a meat pen of three broken Satins and nine Satins in the youth show. The meat pen weighed in at 4 lbs 2 oz, 4 lbs 3 oz, and 3 lbs 14oz. Under judge Ruth-Ann Bell, they placed 16 th out of 19 pens shown. Unfortunately, because they did not place in the top ten, they did not make it into the livestock sale.

However, that did not take away from the success that would soon follow when Youth Satins were judged. Fifteen Satins were shown by four exhibitors, and judged by Piper Smith Debruler. Cassie’s Satins did very well. Some notable placings were White Willow’s Honeybee winning Best of Variety Blue, and later Best of Breed. Dee’s Twit won Best of Variety Broken and Best Opposite Sex of Breed. White Willow’s Pickles was Best Opposite Sex of Varitey Broken. All nine rabbits that she exhibited got excellent judging comments and were shown against quality competition.

Cassie’s homebred doe White Willow’s Honeybee went on to win Best In Show under Ruth-Ann Bell. In total, 190 rabbits were shown by 49 youth exhibitors. Honeybee was also the rabbit who won Best In Show at this year’s Harford Fair and a homebred. This was Cassie’s first Best In Show win at an ARBA-sanctioned show. Most, if not all of the rabbits she showed at Farm Show are headed to Lebanon, PA for the Pennsylvania State Rabbit Convention (PaSRBA), one of the largest rabbit shows in the country.

Borderline 4-H club hosts an annual Rabbit Fun Day in October at the Harford Fairgrounds where youth can learn about all aspects of rabbit showing, breeding, and general care. Interested readers may contact Cassie at 570-904-4722 (text preferred) or cassiemarvin06@gmail.com or Jill at 607-237-6053 for more information.