Taking care of rabbits keeps this girl hopping

At age 11, Christine Gisel already has two records under her belt. The Post Falls sixth-grader brought in a record-setting $800 at 4-H auction for her Californian rabbits two years ago. This year her set of three grand champion rabbits sold for $900 at the Kootenai County Fair.

“I broke my own record,” she said.

To her delight, Joe and Ellen Gore of Hayden bid on her Californian rabbits, then gave the animals back. Christine said that it’s not unheard of for patrons to return animals, and she was pleased to hear that she could keep hers.

“I feel really happy when I get them back,” she said.

She’ll again breed the white, rotund rabbits, which don’t appear to differ on first inspection from the 30 other rabbits in the Gisel rabbit hutch. Christine breeds them for uniformity and entered the prize-winners in the “pen of three” category. Three rabbits are selected to share a judging cage and should be as similar as possible in weight and body type. Her champions weigh about 9 pounds apiece and carry desirable markings, such as black ears and nose with coloring that doesn’t bleed into the rest of the coat.

Christine learned to recognize rabbits with a favorable shape and hair of the proper texture.

“They should not be too silky, but not too dull,” she said.

Raising rabbits is a family affair and Christine has been involved since she was old enough to walk. An uncle got her started and her grandmother, Carolynn Gisel, is the organizational leader for Christine’s 4-H club, Lucky Clover. Christine got her first rabbit when she was a toddler. Next there was “Sterling Silver,” that she got at age 4. He lived to be 7. “Mysterious Miscellaneous” was the escape artist who always managed to get out of her cage.

“She’d be hopping all over the place,” Christine said. “We chased her and she learned to hop back in.”

Other challenges include last year’s insect invasion that kept Christine’s rabbits from gaining weight. Wasps hovered around the water bottles and stung the rabbits in the mouth. Some of them grew swollen, couldn’t eat and died.

Then there was the time it took three family members and a fishing net to catch a runaway rabbit. But it is “Treezo,” Christine’s pet, a petite gray bunny, who gets the most attention. This is the first rabbit you see as you enter the hutch and it looks nothing like the Californians raised for show, breeding or meat. It was the one request Christine had this year, according to her grandmother. She wanted to have a rabbit that was not a project, but a pet. The other rabbits need specific handling to train them for showing.

“You’re not supposed to cuddle,” Christine said.

The rabbits without show qualities are chosen to eat, preferably the meaner ones. This was the first year Christine ate any of her rabbits and although she didn’t like the idea, she got through it the way most people would.

“I just thought of it as chicken,” she said.

Christine shares her least favorite duty, the cage cleaning, with her younger brother, Jacob. They split the litter this year so he could participate in 4-H, too. Birthing time is Christine’s favorite part, although it also has its challenges. One year they went from six does to 30 bunnies within 24 hours.

The 4-H activities keep this River City Junior High School student busy. Her club helps with the Post Falls Easter egg hunt by boiling and coloring 100 dozen eggs. They do community trash pickups and work on a variety of projects besides rabbits.

Christine entered 11 different projects in the fair this year and won another grand champion prize for entries in aerospace and club scrapbook. She received a reserve grand champion in horticulture and frozen bread dough and took blue ribbons in sewing and archery. She earned a blue ribbon and $300 for a lamb, and is putting her 4-H money into a savings account for college. She’d like to become a marine biologist.

She expresses gratitude for the people who bid on her animals at auction.

“They’re good people,” she said. “If there’s nobody to buy the animals there probably wouldn’t be any market animal. That would cut off half of 4-H.”

She plans to cut down on her number of fair projects next year, but has no intention of giving up the rabbits.

“I think they’re really cute,” she said. “It gives me something to do. It’s fun.”