Rabbits are commonly used in biomedical research but their welfare needs are frequently inadequately met. Understanding their behavioral needs and best-practice housing standards guides improvement in laboratory rabbit welfare.
Laboratory rabbit welfare lags behind rodent welfare in terms of regulatory attention and adoption of best practice despite clear evidence that standard individual cage housing creates significant behavioral deprivation. Rabbits are highly motivated for locomotion — running, jumping, and exploring — in ways that individual cages cannot accommodate. Research documenting stereotypic behavior in caged rabbits, including repetitive bar-gnawing and repetitive head movements, provides behavioral evidence of the chronic frustration that standard housing creates. The transition to group housing in enriched pens represents the most significant welfare improvement available, but requires careful management of the aggression that can occur between adult rabbits: compatible pairs and groups must be established through careful introduction protocols, and environmental complexity including multiple resources and retreat spaces must prevent competitive conflict. Positive reinforcement training for research procedures provides a welfare improvement that simultaneously reduces procedural stress and improves data quality by reducing cortisol confounds. The 3Rs framework applied to rabbit research increasingly recognizes that refinement of housing and handling — not just experimental procedures — is essential to achieving welfare standards commensurate with the cognitive sophistication of these animals.