Rabbits are the third most farmed meat animal in the world. Their welfare in conventional systems is poor, with growing consumer and legislative pressure for improvement.
Farmed rabbit welfare represents a significant gap in agricultural welfare reform. While public attention has focused on broiler chickens, laying hens, and pigs, farmed rabbits — numbering in the billions annually — live in conditions that prevent nearly all natural behavior. The individual wire cage prevents running, jumping, resting on solid surfaces, and normal social behavior. Rabbits are highly social animals that in the wild live in complex group burrow systems — their isolation in individual cages is both physically and socially impoverishing. Group or park housing systems that allow social interaction, movement, and access to solid resting areas represent meaningful welfare improvements that are commercially viable. Growing consumer awareness and retailer commitments are beginning to drive welfare improvement in European rabbit farming.