How housing standards for laboratory rabbits are evolving to better meet their behavioral needs while maintaining research requirements.
Laboratory rabbit welfare has been significantly improved by regulatory change in Europe, but implementation quality varies and global standards lag behind. The mismatch between traditional laboratory housing and rabbit behavioral needs - which include social contact, space to move, and materials to gnaw - creates chronic welfare deficits in millions of animals used in research annually. The good news is that the transition to better housing is supported by both ethics and research quality arguments - enriched, socially housed rabbits produce more stable physiological baselines, potentially improving rather than compromising research outcomes. The welfare and scientific cases for better laboratory rabbit housing reinforce each other.