Rabbits remain among the most commonly used animals in product safety testing, with welfare concerns about restraint, housing, and test procedures.
Laboratory rabbits face welfare challenges from both housing conditions and test procedures. As prey animals, rabbits experience chronic low-grade stress in open laboratory environments and show this through reduced activity, altered immune function, and stereotypic behaviors. Restraint during testing procedures causes acute panic responses. Validated alternatives to the Draize eye test and skin irritation tests using cell cultures have been developed and are increasingly accepted by regulatory agencies.