My rabbit addiction began in a small town in upstate NY, named Cazenovia, when I was seven and my mother bought me a rabbit for my birthday. I had always been an animal lover and was instantly obsessed with my new companion, who I named Strawberry. Strawberry became quiet the pampered pet and attended ALL family trips and outings. Several years later, after my parents got a divorce, my mom met someone with children who had a rabbit (supposedly another female) and arranged a play date for us and the rabbits.... Well, needless to say I learned about the birds and bees watching their "Snuggles" breed my Strawberry. At the time I didn't realize what this meant but after a long conversation with my mother I found out that Strawberry was going to have babies! This of course thrilled me to pieces! I read all the rabbit books on how to prepare for babies rabbits, my dad helped me build a nest box, and we got a new bigger cage. Everyday I would check her box to look for babies, and then sadly one morning I went to check on her and she had died giving birth. I was devastated.....

    After the numbness of losing my first pet wore off my mother encouraged me to get another rabbit. She found a woman in the 4-H program in our county who raised them and ran a 4-H rabbit project.  This sounded interesting. So we went to her house expecting to  see

 

 a few rabbits, but when we walked in her barn they were everywhere! Her name was Euke Wickham and after looking around at her 100 hole rabbitry I finally narrowed it down to two rabbits. A baby tortoiseshell dutch doe and a blue polish doe who was bred named Marie. When I couldn't decide my mother told me I could get both, but Euke had one condition, if she sold us both I had to join her 4-H club and show the dutch doe, who I named Sweety, at the county fair. Of course this was no problem and by the time the fair rolled around a few months later I was really excited. At the end of the fair Sweety had won 3rd place and I was going home with two more dutch.
            Soon my two younger brothers, Keith and Chris, joined the 4-H club and we got some Mini Rex, Holland Lops, and Harlequins . We needed a rabbitry name and decided on Stanford's Little Feet Farm (by this time I had also gotten a few Cavies) and we attended every "Bunny Ranchers" meeting and learned as much as I could about rabbits. Later that year, at state fair I won 1st place novice in the rabbit decathlon and showmanship.

          For several years we showed together adding Jersey Woolies and French Angoras into the mix and even won a Best in Show with a black magpie Harlequin. As time passed the rabbits slowly became more my thing and less  theirs, until finally they gave up , I took over, and Midnight Rabbitry was born.

            After that I continued to dabble with  Mini Rex, Harlequins, Polish, Dutch, Holland Lops, Netherland Dwarfs, and English and French Angoras.  Polish were my real passion, so I decided to focus solely on them. I chose to show in open because I knew competition in open would be harder and if I competed against adults I would be more successful and taken more seriously. It took me a few years to figure out what I was doing, but once I figured out how to piece rabbits together, with  help from my mentors Euke Wickham, Jean Connell, and Sandra Aupperle, I soon became the top polish breeder in NY and the Northeast. From 1999 to 2002 I was in the top 10 APRC sweepstakes and from 2001 to 2004 I placed 1st in open Polish Sweepstakes in NY.

Strawberry, my first rabbit.



 Me and my blue polish doe, Moon Beam in 1997.

Me with one of my winning polish does, Clover and NY judge, Bonnie Burdick (2000)

            In 2000 I attended my first national convention with Jean Connell in Columbus, OH. I entered two rabbits in open and managed to win the broken Polish Sr. Doe class in open and place 2nd  colored French Angora Sr. Doe. I also  met some really amazing people and was able to pick up some very nice stock from Genny Gentry that greatly improved my herd. Since then I have attended the majority of national conventions.

            

            In 2002, I started the Northeastern Polish Rabbit Club where I served as president for two years.
            In 2003 I got my registrars license, graduated high school and moved to Tucson, Arizona to attend the University of Arizona. Once I started going to shows in Arizona, I quickly started up the Arizona Polish Rabbit Club with Genny Gentry, and served as president for a year. At the show I quickly noticed Joy Bramhall’s and Jeremy Collin’s beautiful netherland dwarfs and decided to buy a trio of siamese sables from Joy. After breeding them and showing them for a year, Jeremy and I decided to start showing our dwarfs together. Also in 2003, I finished off the year in 2nd place in the Open APRC sweepstakes.
         

 

   Then in 2005 Jeremy sold out of rabbits and I decided to buy the majority of his herd and sell my polish. Later that year I moved my rabbits into Joy Bramhall’s rabbitry, where she was gracious enough to help me improve my dwarfs.
             Since then Joy has sadly sold out of rabbits and moved to Prescott, AZ, she has been nice enough to rent me her beautiful house and rabbitry.  The rabbitry is a flush out system and used to have 90 holes, however, the system was getting old and rusting out so I replaced part of it with a KW Rabbit Tech system and now have 114 holes plus a few stacking cages for over flow.

             In the fall of  2007, after a lot of pressure from my best friend, Allen Mesick, I decided to take the judges test at the national convention in Michigan and  passed. From there I worked under some great judges including Randy Shumaker, Molly Covert, Brian Hartzell, and Dr. Scott Williamson. I received my license in April 2008 and judged my first show in CA at the Cow Palace show in San Fransisco. My second show was the youth National Fuzzy Lop show in CO. Since then I have judged many shows in CA, NY, AZ, and even went to Japan last November.

Me with a few of my winning polish in 2002
Me judging the youth AFL National in 2007
              I was also president of the Southern ArizonaRabbit Breeders Association for two years, and currently Vice President of the Arizona Netherland DwarfClub. I?m also currently in my senior year at the Universityof Arizona and work fulltime as a server at the local Olive Garden.

              For me, raising rabbits has been one of the best experiences of mylife. As Dr. Scott Willaimson has said "Rabbits has helped everyone getthrough something difficult"and that is absolutely true. Rabbits have gotten methrough hard times and I would not be the person I am if I hadn't takenthe trip to Euke Wickham's house for my first show rabbit. I would liketo thank all of breeders, friends, and family who have helped me onthis journey, especially my very supportive parents, Denise and Rick,who bought my feed, my cages, and paid my entry fees; my New Yorkmentors/life coachs, Jean Connell, Betsy Atkinson, Euke Wickham, DebbieVecchio, Sandra Aupperle, and Linda Cassela; my two dwarf mentors, JoyBramhall and Jeremy Collins; my kindred spirit, Nicole Brockriede; and last but certainly not least, mybest friends, Randy Shumaker and Allen Mesick.

         

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