Lately, I’ve heard a lot about “barn blindness” in the rabbit show circuit and I decided to post a bit of my own interpretations of this term and the imperativeness of taking it seriously.
Barn blindness is a term we use in the rabbit show circuit about a person’s inability to find any new faults or find excessive amount of faults in their herd. Therefore, they appear shocked or confused with their rabbit loses or wins.
Typically, we as show persons, tend to be our own worse critics. We work with our rabbits daily and love them so much that, unfortunately, we see things that are not there. We might become immune to see the best or the worse in our rabbits.
I believe that we all suffer from barn blindness at one time or another. However, only the true breeders will be able to discern the issue. One way to avoid or combat this situation is by showing rabbits with enough competition. If one person shows their own stock over and over and has little to no competition, that person might get blinded by their wins.
Furthremore, just because we purchase stock from very well recognized lines does not mean all our rabbits offspring are “superb”. We need to take a step back and fully evaluate our stock.
I firmly believe that it is imperative for people to show their animals. That way, one not only does one get independent judges’ opinions, but if competition is there, they can compare to the rest of the breeders and see what a rabbit is lacking or exceling in.
Show competition is tough and being "barn blind, can either make us or break us. We all should strive to reach the Standard of Perfection in a rabbit. We need to objectively evaluate and allow others to evaluate our rabbits so we do not become blinded by our stock. In fact, we should not be blinded by anything, after all, all that sparkles, is not always gold.
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