Farmed rabbits are among the least welfare-protected animals in European agriculture. Their complex behavioural needs are severely compromised in conventional cage systems.
Farmed rabbits in conventional wire cages experience profound welfare deprivation. The inability to perform natural burrowing, jumping and hiding behaviours causes chronic frustration that manifests in stereotypic bar-biting and wire-chewing. Rabbits are prey animals with acute fear responses to sudden movements and sounds; in cages, they cannot perform the escape and hiding behaviours their fear system drives. The hard wire flooring causes footpad sores and skeletal deformities. Mortality rates in conventional rabbit systems are extremely high, reflecting the poor adaptation of a stress-sensitive, socially complex species to industrial cage production.