Welcome to the Nature Trail!
You have entered a treasure chest full of rabbit raising information! Our goal is to help you with your bunnies: whether you raise them for pets, show, or commercial purposes. We continue to add to this site in an effort to make it the most extensive rabbit resource on the web… if it’s not already.
History of the Nature Trail
The Nature Trail website was founded in late 2003, when Laurie Stroupe started a website about her beautiful bunnies. Just like her rabbits, the website was successful and blossomed into the foundation for what you see here today. Her daily blog was very popular and helped many breeders improve and enjoy their rabbits. In Laurie’s words:
“When I first created my website, it was to help me sell rabbits and have a way to post what was going on in my barn (i.e., brag). My father-in-law made one simple statement to me that really got the ball rolling. He said, “If you want better ranking [from the search engines], write some content.”
Content? I had no idea what to write about. But it soon occurred to me that getting into showing rabbits could be a daunting thing with so much to learn. I quickly decided that I wanted my website to be a place where I passed on information as I learned it to those who started the hobby after me. I felt like I had to search high and low for bits and pieces of information when I got started. Even the basic stuff that “everybody knows,” I didn’t know. And I wanted other people to have a resource that would tell them what to expect in showing rabbits, to remove the discomfort that often accompanies facing the unknown.”
Laurie sold out of rabbits in 2008, but left TheNatureTrail.com up as a resource for newcomers to the hobby. You can read more about Laurie here.
The Nature Trail Today
In early 2011, Laure passed The Nature Trail website on to Ellyn of Rabbit Smarties Publishers. Since then, I have worked to preserve the quality material that Laurie offered on her website and blog. One of my goals has been to dig from the archives of Laurie’s daily BLOG the valuable articles and categorize them. In fact Laurie said in reference to the blog posts, “…I’d love to see some of those de-blogged and available just for the information in them.” You can still read the original Nature Trail blog posts as they were written.
I strive to continue the “mission statement” that Laurie set for her website:
My mission for The Nature Trail Rabbitry website is to help Holland lop breeders, especially those new to showing rabbits, become comfortably oriented to their new hobby and to gain the knowledge they need to succeed in breeding and showing rabbits.
Bettering the Nature Trail is a continual process, and I appreciate your comments, help, and support.