Billions of rabbits are farmed for meat globally under intensive cage systems that severely restrict natural behavior, prompting growing calls for reform and cage-free standards.
Rabbits are prey species with highly developed flight responses and a strong need for environmental control. Battery cage confinement prevents them from performing any of their natural behaviors: running, jumping, digging, hiding, and grooming companions. Chronic frustration of these drives causes behavioral abnormalities including bar-biting and aggression. Wire cage floors cause sore hocks (pododermatitis) — a painful ulcerative condition. The reproductive pressure on breeding does means their bodies are under constant physiological stress, shortening productive lives. Kits weaned early suffer immunological gaps. The invisibility of rabbit farming to the public — it lacks the advocacy infrastructure surrounding chickens and pigs — has left billions of sentient animals in conditions that most welfare scientists consider severely inadequate.