Eight Things You Should Know About Your Easter Bunny’s Real Life Cousin
Mikaella McInerney
Here's what life is really like for farmed rabbits.
It wouldn’t be Easter without Easter bunnies: flopping those cute ears everywhere, hopping through our gardens, dropping off their hidden eggs. But there’s a strong whiplash in going from the cute depictions of Easter bunnies to the actual conditions farmed rabbits live in globally. Many people don’t realize that rabbit farming is a massive—and cruel—industry. Here are some facts to open your eyes.
1. One billion rabbits are killed every year
Around one billion rabbits are raised in factory farms each year for their meat and fur. The majority of rabbits are killed in China (which is responsible for more than 50% of rabbit meat production worldwide), but there is also high demand for rabbit meat in Europe and the US.
2. Rabbits raised for slaughter are kept in tiny cages
When rabbits are farmed for meat (‘fattening’ rabbits), they are typically kept in small wire cages with a space only the size of an A4-sized piece of paper per rabbit. Some farms can house tens of thousands of rabbits in cages stacked in rows, where their urine and feces gather beneath them.
3. Farmed rabbits cannot act naturally
Think of all those things you associate with rabbits: hopping, digging, burrowing. In these factory farms, rabbits live their entire lives in wire mesh cages, unable to perform any of these behaviors that are so important in their natural lives. Play, enjoyment, and simply achieving basic comfort are impossible for rabbits reared in factory farms.
4. Mortality rates for farmed rabbits are high
The appalling conditions on these factory farms means that illness, stress, and trauma are all extremely high, so it’s unsurprising that mortality rates are also high: 15-30% of all ‘fattening’ rabbits die before they reach slaughter age, typically at around 8-12 weeks. It’s a sad fact that the profitability of the farm takes precedence over the wellbeing of individual animals in factory farming. High mortality rates are considered acceptable as long as the farm remains profitable.
5. Breeding rabbits are kept in cages and denied mothering instincts
Rabbit mothers who are farmed for breeding also have short, miserable lives. Like their offspring who are farmed for meat, breeding rabbits spend their lives in tiny cages; because they are reared for up to 36 months, long-term contact with wire mesh floors leads to sores on their feet and hocks. Breeding does may have up to eight litters per year and will be artificially inseminated again only 11 days after giving birth to a litter. This continuous breeding cycle puts a strain on their bodies. Unable to create warm burrows, and prevented from looking after their kits the way they would in the wild, breeding does may also show high levels of abnormal behaviors—signs of suffering and stress.
6. Rabbits are not protected by the law
There’s not as much legal protection for rabbits as for other animals. Common animal welfare legislation, like the Animal Welfare Act or the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, don’t apply to rabbits. The one federal law that has any effect on rabbits raised for meat is the Twenty-Eight Hour Law—but its protections are minimal, and oftentimes irrelevant, as many rabbits are raised and slaughtered on-site. With almost no federal oversight of the rabbit meat industry, that makes it all the more important for us to put legislative and social pressure on rabbit farms.
7. Rabbits are also bred for their fur—and it’s painful
As well as being bred to provide meat, factory farms also breed rabbits for fur like angora wool. Like their breeding and fattening cousins, rabbits bred for their fur live in tiny, miserable cages, denied of their natural behaviors, and they also suffer the additional trauma of fur harvesting practices. Some angora rabbits are only six weeks old when farms begin harvesting their fur. Farmers strap their paws to a board, stretch them out so they can’t move, and begin tearing their fur out in handfuls. It’s a deeply stressful and painful method, and angora rabbits are ‘plucked’ three to four times a week.
8. Farmed rabbits have significantly shorter lives
In the wild, rabbits can live up to nine years. But kept in captivity and in miserable conditions, sent to early deaths, and subject to disease and trauma, most farmed breeding rabbits are lucky to reach the age of two years old. (Fattening rabbits are killed at 8-12 weeks.)
So this Easter, amongst all the cute imagery of rabbits leaving chocolates for us, why not do your part for the rabbits? Take a stand with us to stop rabbit farming from spreading.
