Health check-up time for Westmoreland Fair rabbits; open eyes wide

It was health check-up time Saturday morning for a few hundred rabbits that were being entered into the rabbit judging contest at the Westmoreland Fair in Mt. Pleasant Township.

“I look over the general body to make sure they are healthy to be entered into the fair,” said Marianne Miller of Unity, a veterinary technician for a Greensburg veterinarian.

Miller placed the rabbits on a table, checking their eyes and legs and holding them gently in place as the rabbits squirmed under her quick exam.

“Just the stress of being at the fair can cause problems,” Miller said.

Miller was checking the 10 rabbits that the children of Lee Lenhart of New Florence, Gabriel, 12, and Grace, 8, were entering into the fair.

The Lenhart youngsters, members of a 4-H club, were showing their Himalayan rabbits that they raise at home, keeping them in their temperature-controlled basement. Their brood of rabbits have grown from one in 2018 to 21, Lee said.

The Himalyan rabbit breed — one of 52 breeds of rabbits — is an original fur breed that has origins in Nepal, the home to Mt. Everest in the Himalyan Mountains, said Jen Lucas of Fairfield, a volunteer with the rabbit judging contest. That breed of rabbits are judged on a variety of characteristics, including the markings on their legs and body and a nose shaped like an egg, Lucas said.

And if anyone walking through the rabbit barn thinks that about 300 rabbits is a heck of a lot of the four-legged cute furry creatures, should join a group of young Westmoreland County rabbit raisers for a trip to a big rabbit show.

“The national show (American Rabbit Breeders Association) in Louisville, Ky., is a big thing, with 25,000 rabbits,” said Lucas, who was logging in the names of the entrants into the fair’s rabbit judging contest.