GAIL GIBBONS - Former COD Holder - Unsuccessful in past Pre

Cimmaron Rabbitry
Gail Gibbons

Gail, tell us a little about yourself and how long you have raised rabbits.  What breeds have you raised and what do you still raise? 

We started raising rabbits when our oldest son became interested in rabbits for meat and to use as a 4H project. Back in1978 our family goal was to produce as much of our own food as we could, the rabbits were a good addition. Eventually he worked his meat rabbits into a small business for himself and his siblings, selling between 40 and 60 dressed fryers a month.  When the boys left home the girls were less interested in meat and more interested in show, so the emphasis of the rabbitry changed. In the beginning we had Satins, almost exclusively with a few Rex. In latter years we had English Angoras, then Jersey Woolys for Jen, while Sarrah had Polish for many years, till she joined me and raised one of my very favorite breeds - Britannia Petites. Sarrah and I also raised Mini Rex from the beginning of that breed. After the fire we rebuilt only the Lionhead herd and Sarrah’s Hollands and she has now added her beloved Velveteen Lops. Sadly because of temperament issues with Britannias I just felt we could not do justice to Lionheads and presentation and rebuild the Britannia herd. Very recently Abby and I added a few Mini Satins. (Back to our roots I guess).  We have produced Best in Show winners in Satins, Polish, Jersey Woolys, English Angoras, Holland Lops and Britannia Petites, though I must admit the Best in Show at Lionhead Nationals in 2005 was one of the best!. 

Tell us about your rabbitry and your move to Kansas.
We have a rather small rabbitry considering what we are doing. We have 84 holes that can be used all year long. They are divided amoung the 4 breeds we currently have with my Lionheads claiming just under half and the Hollands, Velveteens and Mini Satins taking the rest. Abby has 6 cages that are hers for whatever rabbits she lays claim to as her “special ones”. The chosen few that grandma and mom cannot sell.

In addition we have 24 small cages that are designed to be used JUST preceding Nationals and ARBA Convention to house Lionheads that are pre-sold so their manes do not become damaged by sharing cage space with other youngsters.  They are now empty again and will stay that way till we get to Kansas.

My husband Chuck is retiring this summer and we are leaving Minnesota - the frozen, and will be heading off to Kansas were us old folks will not have to shovel snow! This will be a huge undertaking but we are all looking forward to the move and hope to have it done by summer’s end.

How did you first become interested in the Lionhead Breed?  When and where did you first hear of it?  How many animals did you start out with and did you have any idea where this beginning might lead?
We used to travel to shows with Brenda Lindner and her daughter. Brenda is the one that just was fixated on this new breed she had found on the internet. To be honest I was not impressed, but Brenda was adamant and just kept on and on about them. She drove me crazy about helping her make them a breed. Since she did not meet the requirements to pull a COD I finally told her I would do it if she found someone else to join us. She found Arden and the rest is history.

I started with a pair Brenda gave me. The buck was a Magpie Siamese, and I bred him to a number of other breed does while I waited for a purebred doe. The doe was the famous Lindner’s Wooly Bear. She was the one in the litter no one else wanted because she was double maned. That was because the breeders in England, along with Jo Statler, Brenda and Arden saw no future for the double maned Lionhead. I then bought another double mane from Jo Statler named Staler’s Serengeti. From the beginning I believed that the only future of the breed was in the double manes. Shortly after Serengeti came here, Tom Coats in Maryland contacted me and set up a trade of breeding stock. I then added a pair of purebreds from him. A doe that was named Pumpkin (Tortoise - black) and her litter brother, Panda (Broken Tortoise-black). Brenda and Arden added additional stock at that time as well. One of my most influential original animals was a buck I got from Arden about 6 month latter he was called Wetzel’s Rafiki. He was out of a cross of one of those original Coates Lionhead does and a buck out of Jo Statler’s lines. Rafiki was a truly lovely Lionhead. Sadly he died in the fire along with Wooly Bear, Serengeti, Kenya and number of animals that helped to define this breed.

When did you apply for your COD and what does it feel like to be next in line for making these beautiful rabbits an accepted breed?
It was decided by Brenda, Arden and myself that Arden would apply first since he had the most  experience with presentation. He had presented Brits in a number of colors before and was familair with how it all would go. As soon as his COD papers were accepted I filed my backup.

What does it feel like to carry a COD?  It feels “heavy”. There is no other way to describe it. I consider it a great responsibility. I feel I am responsible to everyone else who has Lionheads. I know Arden and I have talked about it and neither of us thought this breed would get this huge this fast and he also feels the pressure to not fail. Most of the things I do these days are defined by presentation in some way it consumes my life. It defines what rabbit breeds I can keep, how my family takes vacations, how we use our free time, even to a great extent how we spend our money. It was a huge factor in if we could move or not?  It is a huge pressure all the time because I know so many people are counting on us. As I tell everyone all the time this is a huge responsibility - we are laying the foundation for an entire breed

What varieties did you start with?  How did you use these first animals to move the breed forward?  Did you cross with other breeds?  Stick to what you had?  Experiment with several crosses?
In the beginning none of us had much choice in colors. I think in the very beginning the emphasis was on manes not type or color. I know early on a good Lionhead with a nice adult mane could not be a bad color. We did always work hard here at Cimmaron on type, right after manes, I am a stickler for sound bodies. But to honest I would say we did no9t look hard at color until after we had been at it for a least 2 years. We had a lot of small e family in the Statler and Coats animals so pretty much from the beginning my goal was Tortoise and Sable Point. The problem was we also had a lot of Harlequin. We worked very hard to clean out that color gene since it would mess up so much down the road and we knew from the beginning it had to go.

We also had a number of Siamese Sables, a fair number of Chestnut Agoutis and a few Fawn/Oranges. Early on we got a number of Otters and Martens. Wetzel’s Rafiki was a Broken Sable Point Marten and two of the original Coates does we got in the trade were also Sable Point Martens. Here at Cimmaron I crossed to a select number of Netherland Dwarf does I bought. The best crosses came from six - three were Tort, two were Sable Point and one was a Grand Champion Chestnut. Brenda Lindner used a number of REW Netherlands. Very early on I also made a few crosses to Chestnut and Black Otter Britannias. We did some test breeding here to Tort Hollands to help clean out the Harlequin gene, but we never sold any Holland to Lionhead crossed bunnies as breeding stock or used them here in our herd. We did have one special doe that had a huge impact on some of our early stuff. She was the result of a accidental breeding done by a 4Her’s kid sister of a Granded Netherland buck to a Granded Florida White doe. She was a Chestnut and made a huge contribution to some of our early Lionheads for body type and normal fur. I know we used a lot more purebreds from other breeders then Arden did, so the two lines developed pretty much separately. It is only since the fire that we have crossed Cimmaron and Wetzel to any great degree and I must say I am very happy with the results.

In the beginning we always kept three basic lines in the herd - pure Staler purebreds, a hybrid line I was working on, and the Coats purebred line. Eventually we melded the purebred Statler and Coats lines with great success creating two line the one I kept purebred and te line we showed which used our hybrid line to correct stance, bring down size and improve head and ears. Early on we did make some crosses to other peoples Lionhead lines from around the country but most showed limited success. After the fire we brought back our orginal lines in pure form where we could but did add some additional stock where other breeders had made crosses of Cimmaron to other lines. We worked with it all the best we could and felt as in our earlier attempts some showed positive results many did not.

In the last two years I have been working closely with Arden and have added more Wetzel blood. I needed to correct normal fur type (Arden has the most lovely normal fur on his Lionheads something most of us struggled with in my opinion). I also needed to bring my size up a little and improve bone as I was starting to lose too much of both. Remember ideal is 3 ½ pounds! Arden’s Lionheads also have excellent width to body due the amount of Holland he put in early on and I was happy to add that trait as well.

I have just brought some Lionheads in from a breeder in California. I really like what I have seen of her stock and I am eager to see what we will get when we cross the two lines. She has put Cimmaron in out there and had very, very good results so I am excited. I can use the new blood diversity and I just love the consistent width of body and head/ears she is getting. As always we are moving slowly as we always move carefully when we bring in any new bloodlines. I think it is a general error most breeders make, to add everything and everybody hoping to get a winner. The other error I see is not bringing in enough animals to have an effect on your herd. We are adding 2 bucks and a doe now and hope to add another couple does once we are settled in Kansas. We look for consistent type and manes in the stock we add and then tend to move more slowly crossing back and forth in attempt to set the traits we want while working hard to not lose what we already have.

Can you tell us what varieties you will go forward with once Arden has passed the torts?  And why you have chosen these?
Well I am limited to Chestnut Agouti, Siamese Sable, Sable Point or REW as those would be the only four left on my COD. If I do as Theresa did and change out a color then my COD will fall behind hers. Since Arden is within 2 years it would not be wise for me to change at this point.
I have been very up front with everyone on this color thing from the beginning as I believe I have a responsibility to the other breeders to let them know what is going on the best I can. With the new ARBA ruling that we will only be able to go forward with two varieties I have given this question a lot of thought.

I have struggled with the Chestnut color from the beginning. I am just not sure that any Agouti color will pass in this breed under the current structure for presentation and the current expectations. I feel there are too many issues with ring color in the transitional wool and even more issues with belly color. I have talked about this with both Tex in the pass and with Mike just this year at Lionhead Nationals not sure there is a resolution at this point. I wish the best to those who are willing to try but right now I am not.

I adore Siamese Sable and have an active and strong shaded program here but since I have to choose only two it will be Sable Point and REW. Sable Point has always been my first love and I have been working hard on them. I feel confident that I can get Sable Point through.

I think it would be wise to pick a “easy one” for my other color so I will do REW. Besides my dear Abby LOVES REW! So Sable Point and REW it will be.

Can you share what you think of the Lionhead breed today compared to where you started several years ago? 
The progress is simply remarkable! All of the breeders, not only those of us who carry the COD banner, should be very proud. It makes our job so much easier, as presenters,  to be able to go and use Lionheads from other herds to prefect and fine tune what we are doing. It gives the breed great credibility in the eyes of the ARBA when breeders bring these lovely examples of the breed to shows. I talked and walked through the Lionheads at Nationals with a number of people in the ARBA who are very interested in the progress of the breed and they were all impressed with the overall quality of the entry. A couple commented that improvement in the upper class of animals is slowing but we all agreed that was to be expected as the breed overall is SO MUCH IMPROVED that progress would be expected to slow some now. 

I think the improvement in Sable Points and REWs has brought them up into the same class with the Torts - which have always been the breeds strength. I am impressed with the way the Blacks are coming, this is a color that can be tough to work with due to the longer softer baby wool often lacks that sparkle that a nice Black coats needs to look great. Overall the Blacks are catching up fast. I think Siamese Sables show the most diversity in type and color but will make it in the end. Sadly I am not so sure about Chestnut Agouti or Fawn. I am looking forward to see how Blues catch up and what new varieties may be coming next.

In the end - I do not think there really is any comparison to what we started with and what we have today! That is a testament to the devotion and hard work of all of Lionhead lovers spread across North America. We set out to create a new breed and we have done a gosh darn nice job of it so far!

#1:  Lynne, tell us a little about yourself and your family and where you live. Well, I was born in Minnesota in 1963 (for anyone who wants to know how old I am-lol) and spent my early years moving around as my father was in management for F.W. Woolworth (yes, I am that old!) After living in various towns in Montana and both Dakotas we ended up in Nebraska City. As this ended up being a long term arrangement my parents finally gave in to my begging for a pet. We had fish and birds, but that didn’t count to me. Mom liked animals-Dad not so much, but he gave in and let me have a couple of guinea pigs (I know, they are Cavies, but to me they will always be guinea pigs)  Alfalfa and Clover , both girls,  were soon joined by a nice young boar named Timothy. Needless to say the population grew. One year I took some of my babies to the county fair and won my first ribbon. About this time a small white rabbit, named Harvey of course,joined my little family.  Harvey  grew up to be a big New Zealand buck, but he was a good bunny. My Dad even paid a vet to splint his leg when it was accidentally broken in a fall, so maybe he liked animals a little bit after all. After Harvey passed on  I went to college for a year . I decided that that was enough education for me so I moved into a tiny little house above the creek with and assorted cats, a Sheltie that I had rescued from a bad situation and a white rabbit named Milton that had been dumped out by someone to fend for himself.  In 1984 I met my husband Gale and after a whirlwind courtship of 3 months we were married ( I was afraid he would come to his senses and back out if I didn’t nab him quick)  The kids soon followed, with our daughter, Amanda, being the 1986 New Years Baby in                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Lincoln, Nebraska, and Dan arriving in February of 1988. All during this time I kept myself busy as a veterinary assistant and pet groomer. We found a place out in the country where we lived for several years so I was able to keep pretty much whatever I wanted. We had horses and raised foals which I showed at halter. Amanda rode and I drove. We also had a few ponies that I trained to drive as well. We had goats that I milked twice daily and we raised bucket calves and fattened hogs with the excess milk. I made my own cheese and even made some goat milk soap. We raised Shelties and Siamese cats. We had several aquariums set up and I also kept a few turtles, lizards, salamanders and snakes (the snakes were mine-hubby wasn’t a fan of them and would count them every morning to be sure something hadn’t escaped during the night) I was invited to different schools to talk about the herps. I really enjoyed sharing with the kids and took various critters to the schools while the kids were growing up. We pretty much had everything from hissing cockroaches to fat-tailed Duprassis to a rhea. Anyway, things went on pretty well until my migraine disease, which is a hereditary neurological condition, took a bad turn and I eventually had to give up working outside the home and it got too hard to take care of the entire menagerie. In 2004 we moved from the acreage to a small house in town. It was hard letting go of most of my animals, but we still have 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 Chinchillas, a pair of finches, a bearded dragon, a couple of Koi and all the rabbits so it’s not like I had to give everything up. I still groom a few dogs on the days when I’m feeling OK, but for the most part the bunnies are my full time job now. Gale & I also volunteer for Raptor Recovery Center here in Nebraska-transporting and giving supportive care to injured birds of prey. Currently  we reside in Nebraska City, Nebraska but are planning to relocate to Topeka, Kansas  so hubby can find work.  We are still in the house hunting stage, but hope to move in May after Amanda graduates from college.

#2:  How did you first become interested in the Lionhead Breed?  When and where did you first hear of it? I recall seeing an ad for Lionheads in the Domestic Rabbits magazine. A friend also mentioned the new maned rabbits she had seen at a show but it was awhile before I actually saw any myself.  My husband Gale really liked them and eventually I broke down and bought a little Blue SM doe, supposedly for him. I had to admit it was a pretty cute bunny. One thing led to another  and we started acquiring more How many animals did you start out with? We bought a Broken Black buck that didn’t turn out as a breeding buck so I went to a different breeder and bought a Black Otter Buck and a Chinchilla doe, as well as a Black doe from the same person we got the first doe from(yes, we got the colors we liked without any thought to what we would get for offspring, but at the time I thought they were just Hubby’s little fun project-lol)  I did eventually phase out the Otter & Chin, but I still have a daughter and granddaughter out of the Black doe How long have you raised the breed and what other breeds do you raise? I think we got our first one in 2003, but we didn’t start having litters until 2004  We also raise Polish and Silver rabbits, and keep a few Holland Lops. When  the kids were in 4H they had Silver Martens , Satins, Standard Chinchillas, Mini Rex, Dutch and a few French Lops at various times and I had a promising herd of Florida Whites for a short time and I am STILL kicking myself for getting out of them. The Polish really did well for the kids so we ended up concentrating on that breed and still have a small herd of them. I added the Silvers in 2003 about the same time as the Lionheads-I guess I am just a sucker for challenging breeds
#3: Where and when did you get your original stock and what varieties did you start with?  How did you use these first animals to move the breed forward?  Did you cross with other breeds?  Stick to what you had?  Experiment with several crosses? The Blue and Black does came from Faye Scheef of Craig, NE. She had some Cimarron/Statler based Lionheads. I also bought some from Sadie Welsh in Colorado-I really liked the type of what she had then. I added a little Cimarron and then quite a few Mossy Possum rabbits. I hadn’t hybridized in the past, but I have crossed in a little Holland Lop just recently and will be using some Netherland Dwarf later on this year. It’s just a long process of trial and error-it takes some time to get all the pieces in place but I think I have that now. You just never know when breeding animals-you can breed the best to the best and get nothing or breed a BUD (Big, Ugly Doe) and get an entire litter of showable bunnies. I think that is what has kept me interested in breeding animals all these years-you just never know what you are going to end up with but there is a lot of excitement when you first look in the nestbox so it is well worth it. You just have to keep trying different combinations until you  find what clicks

#5:  What did you consider the hardest part of raising this breed?  The most frustrating part? I think the hardest thing about the breed is that it has so many things that have to come together to make a correct Lionhead-it’s very rare yet to get everything in one package. I believe that we are seeing better and better rabbits all the time and I think this trend will continue. The most frustrating part is just getting thru the growing pains of the club. I think we all want the same thing-to breed, promote and show the Lionhead rabbit but it just seems that personalities can get in the way too easily.  

#6:  What do you see as the major changes in the Lionheads from the earlier years?  The animals are smaller and much more compact with an upright stance. I also see more consistency in various lines as well.

#7:   Was there an animal that was the most influential in your beginning stock? F & J’s Cuddles, a Black doe with a Cimarron/ Statler / DJ’s pedigree behind her. I also had a chance to use Wetzel’s Cutting Edge, a Chestnut buck, on her as well as a few other does. Another buck was Cimarron Nazareth that I purchased from Gail Gibbons. MSC’s Jenga and Mossy Possum Eros were two more Chestnut bucks that I got good babies out of.  Cimarron Taden was a nice Tort buck that we co-owned with Mossy Possum for an all too brief time that made nice babies for me. Wetzel’s Princess, Angelic Hares Destiny and Mossy Possum Cleopatra are a few of the does in the backgrounds of our current herd.  Mossy Possum Cosmo, a Sable Point buck  has had a big influence as well and I am hoping for one more round of babies out of him before he goes to his new home in Texas. Cimarron Mordor is here too now making babies and I have Pridelands and KP’s bunnies as well that were recently added. I could just keep going on & on-there were many rabbits that have contributed to our bunny barn. Each one unique and with their own personality.

#9:  You received a new C.O. D. in (October? November?), 2007.  Tell us what varieties you have on your certificate and why you chose these. Originally I had Black Tort, Blue Tort, Chestnut, Orange and Sable Point but I recently dropped the Black Tort and replaced it with Blue Point. The Black Torts are probably the strongest as far as type, and have enough people interested in them that I think they will make it thru the acceptance process without too much trouble. I loved the few Blue Points that appeared in various litters and thought that they would compliment the other varieties I had. Blue Tort is pretty common and the Sable points are just lovely to look at. Chestnut is not my favorite by any means, but I keep getting such nice animals in that variety that I have quite a few of them on hand. Orange is just a personal thing , I guess I just think that’s the most “lion like” color. In my mind the orange is a reddish gold animal, but we may see a lot of variation on it in the first few years. I think that the smut can be bred out of them, it will just take a few generations.

#10.   It seems daunting to apply for a C.O. D.  How long did it take between submitting your request for your C.O. D. to hearing back from the Standards Committee did it take to have it accepted? It was about two weeks after I sent my COD in that I heard back that it was accepted. I had Mike Avesing look it over for me to make sure I had everything covered. He also helped my with the  Blue Point standard that recently replaced Tort in my COD. I think the standards committee is very willing to work with Lionhead breeders at this point.

 1) My name is Regina Mayhugh.  I am from Circleville, OH.  I have been raising rabbits since I was three years old.  We started with mix breeds that my dad raised for meat and Mom and Dad said that when dad was wanting to get rid of them I would not let him and I would take care of them.  Obviously I do not remember that but I do not remember my life  without rabbits.  When I was ten I started showing in 4-H and ARBA shows. I became very active in 4-H and when I was in high school I was also very active in FFA.  My rabbits were both my 4-H and FFA projects.  I won rabbit showmanship every year I showed at our county fair, won my rabbit project either every year or pretty close to it and even had Grand Champion Market Rabbit twice with bunnies that I raised, both were very proud moments for me.  As part of my FFA project I won the State Proficiency Award in Specialty Animal and FFA State Degree through my rabbit project.  As you can see I have had rabbits forever and they have been a huge part of my life.  I have had almost every breed in my barn as some point or another. 

I was able to keep my rabbits while in college and after I got married and commuted to take care of them. In 2004 we built a house and was able to move the rabbits over and into a shed.  I am now happy to say that this summer my husband built a barn for them and we are finishing the barn so they can be moved in this winter.

I have been married for seven years to Sean Mayhugh.  We have two wonderful little girls, Samantha- 3 and Sylvia-1.  Sean has standardbred race horses (harness horses) and I have the rabbits.  The girls enjoy both.  Samantha has a few Dutch that she adores.  Sylvia likes them all but has a lionhead that lets her hold him.

2) I got my first lionhead Feb 2003 at the show in Lima, OH.  He was a SM Seal buck who I called Scruffy as he really did not have much mane.  I think this show was the first time I had seen them.  I bred him to a holland doe as I only had him and got two cute SM broken does that I remember keeping (I do not remember what else was in the litter).  One had lopped ears and one did not.  Since then I started buying stock from Kathy Denman, Tiara Farm Rabbitry and Dawn Guth, Bastets Bunnies. 

Besides that first cross I did just to get some lionheads, I have also used Netherland Dwarfs in the mix.  Of course doing this you are known to get some NMs if you breed to a SM and the funny thing is so of the rabbits that produced really nice stuff for me were NMs or from NMs in other herds.  Most of my herd in the beginning were SMs, then it went to mostly DMs.  I still have a few SMs, but DMs tend to dominate my barn.  My goal however is to have competitive SMs.  Some of my SMs (even my F1 crosses) grow nice manes back after they molt. And some of my best DMs are from either a NM or a SM.

4) I received my COD April 2008.  I have talked about it for the past couple of years.  I remember talking about doing it when I was pregnant with Samantha, but since I had drastically cut the herd due to having my first child, I never got around to it.  My goal originally was to get a COD in otters, and I had some nice ones before she was born but sold them all and never really decided again to try it until this past spring, and I am glad I did.  The worse part was trying to decide which other colors to pull besides otter.  My original COD colors were Blue, Chocolate, Otter, Sable Marten and Smoke Pearl.  My reason for Sable Marten is that I loved that color years ago when I was getting them.  Smoke Pearl I went with because my hopes was to change that to Smoke Pearl Marten when I got them later, but as I was applying for this COD, I had smoke pearl martens pop up in the nest box.  I decided blue and chocolate were too many colors to focus on so I decided to just stick with the three.  My herd is also strong in siamese sable and smoke pearl as I will be working with them with my martens.

5) The hardest part of raising this breed I think is determining who to keep and who to move on.  They can change so much as they grow and mature.  The fuzzy bunny who is extremely fuzzy as a junior, you want to move him as he can't show as a junior but as a senior, once he sheds the baby fur he becomes that clean adult who keeps his mane.  With limited cage space and the price of feed it is hard to keep them all until they become seniors just to see what they will do.  This is probably also the most frustrating part.  The next frustrating and challenging part besides trying to decide what to keep is deciding what to buy.  I have spent lots of money on juniors with awesome manes only to find them molt them out and my own animals have better manes than the purchased one that I spent good money on.  I tend to worry when I sell an animal, will it keep its mane, how will it turn out?  Though I have been lucky with a couple breeders to see that the stock they have received from my herd went on to either show well for them or in most cases littered good show bunnies, so this makes me feel better.  I don't show much at all with the girls being as young as they are, but when I hear that either my rabbits or offspring from my rabbits have done well, it makes all the frustration and challenges worth it.

6) The major changes I have seen are the improved body type, head and ears and of course manes.  My preference is a well rounded bunny with short clean ears and a rump that is free from wool. 

7) Richardson's Alabaster Jr (Prideland's Alabaster x Prideland's Lilth) - a sable point marten teddy- was definitely the first influential rabbit.  Dawn Guth had purchased him and sold him to me- and I thank Dawn very much for letting me purchase him!  Not only did he help with my manes (especially generations later) but he also sparked my interest in otters and martens years ago.  I will never forget breeding him to Tiara's Topsey and I got lots of colors of martens and otters,  That is when I fell in love with lionheads in the otter and marten varities. Unfortanely I let him go years ago, and I sure could use him now.  He pulled the coolest colors.  We even found out he was a chocolate carrier.  Another animal that has produced some stuff for me was Bastet's Martini, a REW buck who I would also call a teddy.  He has put some nice bodies on my animals.  I do still have one baby that I kept from Alabaster Jr from one of my early litters using him, RRH's Alvin, and he has also been throwing some nice animals.