Housing of rabbits - results of an European research network

Abstract

The main welfare indicators to assess rabbit housing are mortality (unavoidable low), morbidity (unavoidable low), physiological parameters in the species-specific standard, species-specific behaviour and performance on a high level. Group housing of does with kits is possible if an individual electronic nest box recognition system is used. At the moment, the disadvantages (especially the labour-intensity, the production costs, difficulties of health control and implementation of new does into the group) do not allow the use of group housing on farm-level. The single housing of does with kits remains the main housing system also in the near future which can be characterized by detailed measures and parameters. Growing rabbits are mainly kept in groups up to approximately 20 animals/m(2) (up to 46 kg/m(2)) with a tendency towards pen housing with different kinds of enrichment (e.g. wood sticks as gnawing material)