Rabbit Hopping...

[Pet_Bunny]

The girls from the Canadian Rabbit Hopping Club wereat theBonnie Doon Shopping Centre (Edmonton) giving demonstrations of the sport yesterday. They will be at West Edmonton Mall on April 11 (Good Friday) and at Fort Edmonton Park on April 12.

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Once again, what fabulous pictures!

The CRHC is a great group of kids & and they have some amazing jumpers

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

I think tomorrow I will be making the first video for the online training program! I don't have my video camera (sister has it) so I'll have to use my regular camera...
Hopefully in the meantime I will be able to find a program that joins videos together, because my camera doesn't like Windows Movie Maker very much

Anyway, the first video will be on how to harness a rabbit using the Figure-8 Harness, since that's the only type I have, and seems to be the most easily accessible.

Emily

 

[Lolpigs]

Wow amazing, I love it

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

:biggrin2:Quite an interesting "sport", isn't it, Lolpigs? Exactly why I love it.

Emily

 

[Malexis]

Woah lol.. I was once on craigslist and i swear i saw an add for people to join! and i was totally thinking about it. Could it of been you? Im in washington.. I wish you were a bit closer, i'd love to learn.

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Malexis, it was probably Hayley411. I know she posted an ad on CL wanting to know if there were any others out there who were interested in starting a club. She is part of a rabbit agility club in Olalla, WA. Not sure how far from Seattle that is... but I'm sure if you PM her she can give you all the details about it all!

I wish I were closer too! I would love to teach you. I'm in Auburn a fewtimes amonth at mydad's.Don't reallyhave thearea to train really at his place.I am thinking of doing aRabbit Hopping Clinic sometime this year, and have plans for a show...just have to get permission to do it, and jumps too, hehe.

Emily

 

[Malexis]

I'd love to make jumps myself and do it maybe, im sure i wont be able to travel to far.. Lol Do you have pictures of the kinda jumps you use?

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Yeah I here ya on the traveling far thing.
I can take some pictures of my jumps tomorrow and post them for you.
Mostly, I just use things I find lying around, but I do have some nice jumps that I built and then re-built.
I'm hoping to get some PVC jumps soon though. They'll last better in Washington weather, lol.

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Malexis, here are some pictures of one of the jumps that I reconstructed myself.

When I first built it, I had an two bars across the bottom like this: X and two straight bars above that. They were "fixed" bars, meaning if the rabbit were to knock a bar, the bar would stay in place. Really quite dangerous as this is how your rabbit could injure himself.

When I first built it, Magic wouldn't jump it because it was too tall.
So just a couple weeks ago (and I built this jump last summer I think?) I decided to render it. I put 3 nails on each of the fronts of the stands for the rails to lay on. This way, if they get knocked they will fall to the ground.

Knocking a rail also teaches a rabbit that he'll have to jump higher, in order to clear the jump and not feel that pressure of a rail on his legs; so that's another importance of having un-fixed bars.

I still have to find some squares of plywood for the bottoms, because the reinforcments on the bottom of the stands don't keep it up very well, so I have to use bricks to hold it in place for now. You will see what I mean in the first picture:

How the rails sit:

Side view:

Not a perfect jump, but it meets the safety for a jump. And more nails will be added so I can get higher heights. Magic will only jump the two poles...Don't know how high they are, but he can jump higher.
Before I fixed it, I think the total height of the jump with top rail was 20 inches. So it's a lot smaller now, but can go taller. Another advantage of having un-fixed rails.

I will get pictures later of myother jumps, I just have to wait for my step-dad to finish mowing (have to keep aclean-cut course!) and then I will set them up again

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Malexis, here is a picture of the above jump, but what it looked like before I remodeled it:

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Malexis, here are some more pictures of the kind of jumps I use:

(same jump above)Before:

After:

Cross bar jump:

I use pop-bottle containers for the wings/standards of the jumps; the brick is just keeping it from tipping over :

A single-vertical; the brick is used to make the rail even:

Additional heights; the little brown chunk of wood I use for holding cross rails:

Three jump course:

Distance; about 3 full bunny strides:

Oxer:

Side angle of oxer:

Whole, finished course (about 20 minutes building time):

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

I got an H harness!
It's actually a ferret one, but that was the only one we could find; I'm just hoping that it will fit Magic.
It's red, so I think our "colour" will be red, lol.

Anyway, when we go out to clean cages, I will take pictures of him with it on. No jumping today because it's raining

 

[NetherlandDwarf]

this looks fun. how do you think a nethie would do? and finding a harness that would fit a nethie, where would i even look or find one that would fit him?

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

I'm dissapointed: The harness doesn't fit Magic It barely even fits on Ray, who is a lot smaller. I'm getting really tired of trying to find an H-harness that actually fits. Seems to be they're sold everywhere else but my area. I'll have to try the only two pet stores that I haven't tried yet.

NetherlandDwarf: I think a Netherland would be a great jumping prospect! As for finding a harness, you'll have to look around. I can't find H-harnesses anywhere; and the ferret H-harnesses don't fit Magic. Not sure if the ferret harness would fit a Nethie. I doubt it would. It doesn't fit on Ray, and he's much slimmer around/smaller in the head than a Nethie.

Otherwise, you can get a rope figure-8 harness to start out with; they're adjustable and also the adjustments lock. Or a Comfort Harness (which you can find at PetSmart/Co.)

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

I figured I'd bring this thread back to life, seeing as how I haven't posted in it since May.

I am still determined to get this online-training program up and running (especially since I haven't done it yet! ) and hopefully I will have some free time on the weekends I'm at my dads house, so I will be able to put together some information there....probably not any videos or tutorials seeing as how my jumps and bunny are not there, lol. But if I were to take some video clips then I could assemble them together at my Dads house and add things, etc. I won't have much free time because of my Senior Project (but it does involve bunnies, so I'll be able to fit in filming vids every once in a while! ), and because I'm working on a month-long story. Also, the weather here in Washington proves it difficult to train very much in the winter months; but I do try to get Magic out on the nice days and when I do train him I will be sure to get some info/tutorials for the online program!

For those of you still interested, I will hopefully have some information up soononthe basics of training. I also have the rules& regulations for the Rabbit Hopping Organization of America; although, these are the 2007 version of the rules; but they are currently being revised by the founder of the club and the revised/updated copy should be available next spring.

So who are our current members with hoppers? I know there's not many, but it would be cool to get some more.

If you are new to RO, and haven't looked through this thread yet, I really advise you to go check out the first couple of pages. There are some answers to basic questions, as well as on the original post there are links to some great online hopping clubs & forums.

Feel free to ask questions, share hopping stories, and definitely post pictures of your rabbit hopping for others to see!

Emily

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

I do rabbit hopping with my 3 buns. We belong to the Canadian Rabbit Hopping Club based in Calgary, AB.

We have a monthly practise and anyone who wants to come can. As we practise indoors, weather is not really an issue. Emily, if you want me to do some short video clips, I probably could. You would need to tell me more or less what you want. We do have a bunch of bunnies, so I would probably be able to get something.

 

[~*sAbRiNa*~]

I really want to start hopping with Sabrina! Does anyone have a contact for Southern Ontario? I am about halfway between Toronto and the US border.

 

[funnybunnymummy]

I'm curious what you rabbit hoppers build your jumps out of? I'd like to build a jump or two and see if Gus would get the hang of it. D'you think the cardboard tubes from giftwrap would work for the rails?

Thanks!

Rue

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

Our jumps are made of wood and we use film canisters for the jump cups. The poles and wooded dowels. If you had some pieces of wood (about 2"*2" and about 1.5ft high) you could easily build a jump. A hardware store should be able to cut them to the size you want. I would put at least 4 bars on, more if the spacing between them. The space between the bars should not be big enough for the rabbit to go under ot through the bars. The most important thing is that the bars and be fairly easily knocked off so the rabbit doesn't get hurt.