Factory farming

How are rabbits farmed and what are they farmed for?

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For many people in the UK rabbits are considered a family pet, or a character from a well-loved children's story. But across Europe many millions of rabbits live their lives in factory farms, crammed into tiny cages. But what for?

Why are rabbits farmed?

Rabbit meat is popular across Europe, and despite not generally being available in UK supermarkets, is more commonly sold here than you might expect. Large volumes of rabbit meat also makes its way into the UK market for use in pet food. There are limited reliable figures for the number of rabbits farmed, but estimates suggest over 300 million rabbits are slaughtered in the EU for meat annually.

In some parts of the world hundreds of millions of rabbits are also reared for their fur but in the EU rabbit fur is a low-value by-product and is usually disposed of because processing costs make it impossible to compete with imports.

Are rabbits farmed in the UK?

While there have been some efforts to start intensive rabbit farming in the UK over recent decades, there has not at any point been a significant rabbit farming industry operating in the UK.

In recent years, applications for intensive farms have been thwarted by local campaigns so although there may be some very small-scale rabbit meat production, rabbit farming is not a functional industry here. Rabbit meat sold in high-end restaurants and butchers is typically imported from France, Spain, and Italy.

How are rabbits treated on farms?

The vast majority of rabbit farms in Europe are highly intensive, and cannot meet the basic welfare needs of rabbits. The rabbits can be divided into two kinds; those used for breeding, and those reared for meat.

What are fattening rabbits?

‘Fattening’ rabbits - those being raised for meat - live in small, barren, overcrowded cages with about 500cm2 space per rabbit; that’s less than an A4 sheet of paper.

They live in vast sheds which often house tens of thousands of rabbits. The cages are lined up side-by-side and stacked in tiers suspended 1 - 2 metres off of the ground. Their urine and faeces gather in large, stinking piles below them. They spend their entire lives on wire mesh, unable to stand comfortably or carry out important natural behaviours like digging, burrowing, hiding or hopping. The conditions are so restrictive, with around 4-6 rabbits per cage, that they cannot comfortably lie down and often have to rest on top of one another.

The conditions and stresses endured are so bad, that rabbit farming has an extremely high mortality rate, mostly due to respiratory and intestinal infections. A whopping 15-30% of all fattening rabbits die before they reach slaughter age, which is about 8 - 12 weeks.

What are breeding rabbits?

Breeding rabbits, who are a larger size because they have reached maturity, are typically kept individually and provided with slightly more space. However, they still live their lives on mesh which causes sores on their feet. They are unable to carry out natural behaviours, including pursuing the strong urges a rabbit mother-to-be has to build a safe, cosy burrow for her brood.

Female rabbits are bred to have large litters, and are artificially inseminated 11 days after giving birth to each litter. Breeding rabbits die prematurely or are culled within a year.

One doe sticks in my mind. When the farmer yanked her out of her cage to be artificially inseminated, I could see she had bald patches and scratch marks all over her back and rear-end. The farmer explained to me that he used her to hold the male rabbits over when he collected their semen, and it was the claws of the male rabbits that had caused her extensive injuries.

~ Rich Hardy, Undercover investigator

Are there laws to protect rabbits on farms?

There is no species-specific legislation that protects rabbits in the UK or EU and the only protection they receive are against the very worst abuses which would be covered by generic animal welfare legislation.

How are factory-farmed rabbits killed?

After 8-10 weeks being ‘fattened’, young rabbits are caught by hand and transported to slaughterhouses. The handling is often rough, and despite animal welfare legislation which says that animals should not be carried by limbs, ears or horns, rabbits are often grabbed by the ears or scruffs. They are often then piled into repurposed shopping trolleys being wheeled down the aisles before being stuffed into crates for transportation.

Once at the slaughterhouse, the rabbit crates are stacked on top of one another. The crates should have layers of plastic between but this is not always the case, resulting in the waiting rabbits becoming soaked in the urine of those above them.

Slaughter legislation requires that rabbits should be stunned prior to slaughter, and this is carried out with a V-shaped electrical stunner. The rabbits are pulled out of the crates individually, and their heads pushed into the metal V, which administers an electric shock. If done correctly, the rabbit is rendered unconscious. However, if workers are rushing it’s not uncommon for rabbits to not make full contact with the stunner and be left partially or fully conscious.

The rabbits are then attached to hooks on an over-head conveyor belt, by pushing the hook through the gap between the tendons in their back legs. The next worker then cuts the rabbits’ throats and they die by bleeding-out.

The first time I walked into a rabbit slaughterhouse, I thought I had stumbled into a horror film. Hundreds of beautiful white rabbits sat waiting, their little strawberry-coloured eyes watching all that was going on around them, while those on the processing-line hung lifeless, with dark-red blood running over their soft, bright-white bodies.

~ Pru Elliott, Campaigner

What can I do?

Many consumers in the UK assume that rabbit meat in restaurants or small butchers is wild-caught and assume it has had a ‘good life’. However this is rarely the case.

Even establishments which sell rabbit meat may have no idea how it was produced. If rabbit meat is being sold or served in your local community, ask about its origins, and share information with the establishment about the way rabbits are factory farmed.

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