Rabbit Mills
At this writing, our
local Petland has over 25 baby bunnies for sale. Ever wonder where that
constant supply of babies comes from and what happens to them when they
get a little older? See the articles below for details of the cruel rabbit
mill industry. Many people who buy rabbits from pet stores don't know that
rabbits are sensitive animals that require special care if they are to
thrive and be happy. Many homeless rabbits are available for adoption, and
nonprofit groups offer excellent advice on how to care for bunnies. (See
links below.) Petland, in contrast, sells a small cage called a Rabbitat
to go along with the bunnies. Clever title, but confining rabbits to a
space that small subjects them to lifelong misery. Rabbits have strong
jumping legs! How can they do their happy bunny dance if they have no room
to move? They need, at a minimum, the space provided by a metal exercise
pen, simple to set up and readily available at pet stores. Preferably they
should be allowed to run, play, and chew lots of hay in entire
rabbit-proofed rooms.
RAISING RABBITS -The
Plight of Pet Rabbits, courtesy of Margo DeMello, director
of the House Rabbit Society, from
http://www.petroglyphsnm.org/.
It's
hard to know exactly how many pet rabbit breeders exist in the United
States today, or how many rabbits are bred by this barely-regulated
industry. According to an industry survey, at least 20,000 men and women
breed rabbits for the pet market, but that is certainly an underestimate,
and does not include all those meat rabbit breeders who sell to the pet
market as well. Pet rabbit breeders range from the small backyard or hobby
breeders to sophisticated show breeders, to very large commercial
rabbitries, or "rabbit mills" with conditions very similar to the more
widely known puppy mills. These large commercial pet rabbit breeders sell
large numbers of rabbits at wholesale prices directly to pet stores, or
through wholesalers who act as middlemen. Many smaller breeders do not
have the facilities for such a large-scale operation, so they sell
directly to the customer or to small, local pet stores. But customers who
purchase a rabbit at a chain pet store like Petland or Petco are most
likely buying a rabbit who was bred at a rabbit mill, and sent to the
store via dealers who transport rabbits, puppies, kittens, and other
animals from breeder to pet store.
Like the puppy breeding
industry, the pet rabbit breeding industry is rife with cruelty. From the
breeding process itself (with large numbers of babies being culled if they
do not conform to breed standards) to the joyless and solitary life led by
the breeder rabbits, to the dangerous transport of often un-weaned babies
across the country (leading to 20-30% of deaths during transport alone),
and finally to the conditions at the pet store itself (where, due to
notoriously poor conditions and little to no staff training in rabbit
care, another 20% of baby rabbits can be expected to die), rabbits bred
for the pet industry are lucky to even make it to a home.
Once a
customer, usually upon impulse, decides to purchase a rabbit, they can
expect to bring home an animal who the staff has either not sexed or has
incorrectly sexed, and they will, most likely, receive no educational
information on how to care for their new rabbit. Most will not know that
rabbits can be litter box trained, and will purchase a wooden hutch for
the rabbit to live a short and lonely life outdoors. Others may know that
rabbits can live indoors, but will not be informed of the need to bunny
proof their house, and once the rabbit demonstrates their natural need to
chew, will be placed outside, given away, or surrendered at a shelter. No
pet store that I know of provides any sort of pre-sale counseling and
education to potential purchasers, setting up the stage for the rabbit to
live an unhappy life with a family who was not prepared for his needs.
How many rabbits are produced by this industry? Again, no reliable
numbers can be found, but House Rabbit Society representatives around the
country, along with other rabbit rescue groups and the city and county
shelters which take in rabbits all will verify the same thing: rabbits are
surrendered at shelters and then euthanized in alarming rates. And there
are thousands more rabbits who are not brought to shelters, but instead
are abandoned in parks, woods, golf courses and college campuses, where
these domestic animals will often reproduce before their deaths by car,
dog, or wild animal. The rabbit breeding industry contributes to the
problem by breeding rabbits indiscriminately for sale in pet stores and
other venues, providing little to no education with their sales, and,
ironically, disputing the fact that a problem with overpopulation or
homeless rabbits even exists.
THE RABBIT
BREEDING AND RAISING PROCESS
By Cheryl Kucsera, The
Monaco House Rabbit Sanctuary From
http://petstoreabuse.tripod.com.
Rabbits, among the most
exploited of animals, are viewed by breeders as livestock. The majority of
them are raised for meat and/or fur. Many are raised for exhibition, while
many others are raised to be used in animal research. The number of
rabbits who end up as companion animals is small in comparison to the
number raised for these other "uses." Many people don't realize that
companion rabbits are of the same breeds that are exploited for meat, fur,
exhibition and research.
The operation in which rabbits are raised
is called a rabbitry. Most people outside of the rabbit breeding community
have never seen a rabbitry. The rabbitry closely resembles a battery hen
operation, with row after row of wire cages, often stacked. The rabbits
spend their entire lives on wire bottom cages, which often cause sores on
their feet and possibly broken toes from getting caught in the wire.
Except for mother rabbits with babies, each rabbit lives singly, in its
own small, wire cage. Female rabbits are bred repeatedly. When they are no
longer productive enough to suit the breeder's standards, they will be
culled from the rabbitry. The fate of many of the rabbits culled from the
rabbitry will be slaughter (for human consumption); others may be sold as
food for reptiles or other animals.
Before and during the Easter
season, consumer interest in baby bunnies is at its peak. In order to
exploit this demand, many rabbit breeders will schedule the breeding of
their rabbits so that extra litters of baby bunnies will be available at
this time. In pet store terms, baby bunnies don't have a long "shelf
life." This is because they grow so very quickly. Therefore, in order to
meet pet stores' desires for the "cutest" baby bunnies, some breeders may
supply bunnies who are too young (under 8 weeks of age). I was told of one
breeder/petmiller who supplied baby bunnies to local pet stores. Every few
weeks, when he would drop off a new "shipment" of baby bunnies, he would
pick up any that hadn't sold from his previous shipment. According to him,
if the bunnies hadn't been purchased at that point, they never would be.
So, he took them back to his home where they ended up in his freezer. He
said it was more "humane" for them to end up on his plate than to languish
in a cage in the pet store!
Rabbit mills exist, but the conditions
and quality of life that exist in "reputable" rabbitries aren't very
rabbit friendly, either, since life in the rabbitry cruelly deprives
rabbits of the opportunity to live according to their natures. Domestic
rabbits are descendants of wild European rabbits, highly sociable animals
who live in colonies with a sophisticated social hierarchy. Domestic
rabbits still retain the social nature of their wild cousins, but life in
the rabbitry denies them any opportunity to form bonds with other rabbits,
or to engage in behaviors such as mutual grooming or playing. With
European rabbits, the father rabbit takes a very active role in raising
and nurturing the babies, but this, too, is denied domestic rabbits since
the only contact the parent rabbits have is when they are put together to
mate.
Regardless of the total number of rabbits in the rabbitry,
it is a very sad, lonely, boring and stressful existence for its
inhabitants. There is no shortage of homeless rabbits! An uncountable
number of rabbits are euthanized in animal shelters each year. With so
many deserving rabbits being destroyed, how can anyone justify purchasing
a rabbit from a breeder or a pet shop? And as long as perfectly healthy
and wonderful animals are being destroyed in shelters, how can anyone
justify bringing another litter into this world? Adopt a homeless animal
and save a life!
Rabbit rescue and education groups:
House
Rabbit Society National Headquarters
148 Broadway
Richmond, CA
94804
http://www.rabbit.org/
D.C. area
chapter: http://www.rabbitsinthehouse.org/
Friends
of Rabbits Alexandria, VA
http://www.friendsofrabbits.org/
RabbitWise
http://www.rabbitwise.org/.
EASTER BUNNY NOT THE PET YOU THINK IT
IS
By Lorraine Nicotera. This article appeared in
the Weymouth News (Massachusetts paper) Wednesday, March 9, 2005.
When I was a kid, for Easter my parents bought all us kids a
little black bunny who we named Fluffy. We all loved her and we passed her
around and petted her and fed her carrots and we were thrilled.
Eventually, like kids do, we lost the initial interest and cleaning and
caring for her became a chore. She was designated first to the basement,
then, because of the smell (we were not diligent in cleaning up after her)
the garage, a cold, dank, light-less building filled with old junk and
engine parts. We reluctantly cleaned her cage maybe once a week and she
lived on a wire-bottomed cage on pellets, and sometimes, when we were lax
(as children can be) in her own feces. She died a couple of years
later--on a cold, winter morning I found her in her cage when I, just by
chance, wandered into the garage.
I dedicate this column to her.
In the days leading up to Easter, rabbits appear on television
commercials and packages of candy, and stores are filled with stuffed
rabbits. It is no surprise that children beg their parents for a bunny of
their own. Ill-prepared to care for these unique creatures, their owners
often quickly tire of them. In the months following Easter, local humane
societies and rabbit rescue groups are flooded with rabbits, former Easter
gifts whose owners no longer want them.
What most people don't
know is that rabbits are the third most numerous animal in shelters today.
Rabbits, along with chicks, are victims of a disposable society where
often they are perceived as commodities, toys and objects for our
frivolous use or amusement. The really unlucky rabbits are dumped outside
where, not bred to survive in the wild as wild rabbits are, predators,
cars, illness, and injury virtually guarantee an early death.
Children like a companion they can hold, carry and cuddle. That's
why stuffed animals are so popular. Rabbits are not passive and cuddly.
They are ground-loving animals, who get frightened and insecure when they
are held or restrained. So the result is: the child loses interest, and
the rabbit, like Fluffy, ends up neglected or abandoned.
And
rabbits are not low-maintenance pets. They have a life-span of 10 years
and require as much work as a dog or cat, or maybe more. I myself have two
house rabbits, Briscoe and Logan. I adopted them from one of the many
local rabbit rescue groups. They are litter-box trained and have free
reign of most of the house. Every morning, I empty their two litter boxes,
re-line them with newspaper, put in fresh timothy hay. Then I give them a
handful of morning greens, made up of parsley, dandelion greens and
sometimes other assorted greens. They have access to unlimited timothy
hay, and at night they get a small amount of rabbit pellets. I also give
them a few daily treats of pieces of carrots, bananas and apple.
Most people don't realize that rabbits can and should be spayed
and neutered, so that they don't mark their territory (your house) with
feces and urine. And that way, they can have a companion, which all of us
desire. They should be indoors, as members of the family. To consign these
sensitive, intelligent, social animals to life in a hutch outside, or a
cage indoors or in the garage, offers them a grim life.
Clearly,
rabbits aren't for everyone. Contrary to Eastertime hype, rabbits and
small children aren't a good match. The exuberance of even the gentlest
toddler is stressful for the sensitive rabbit. Rabbits are physically
delicate and fragile and require specialized veterinary care. Children are
naturally energetic, exuberant and loving. But "loving" to a small child
usually means holding, cuddling, carrying an animal around in whatever
grip their small hands can manage--precisely the kinds of things that
rabbits are frightened of. Rabbits handed this way will often start to
scratch or bite simply out of fear. Many are then dropped accidentally,
resulting in broken backs and legs. Those Easter rabbits who survive the
first few months quickly reach maturity. That's when the interest in them
starts to wane, because they are no longer cute and tiny, and then often
they are gradually neglected.
Parents, please listen: If you're
thinking about adding a rabbit to your family, think about this: pet
rabbits have a life span of 7-10 years. Please don't buy on impulse. Wait
until after the holiday. Make an informed decision by learning about
rabbit care first. Two places you can find information on care and
behavior are from the House Rabbit Society at http://www.rabbit.org/ and or the
Massachusetts House Rabbit Society at http://www.mahouserabbit.org/.
And always consider adoption from your local shelter or the above
mentioned organizations. For the rabbit's health and well-being (as well
as for your child's), make sure an adult will be the primary caretaker and
will always supervise any children in the household who are interacting
with the rabbit.
Domestic rabbits are inquisitive, intelligent and
very social by nature. A rabbit can be a delightful companion animal as
long as you remember he is not a child's toy. He's a real, live, 10-year
commitment. My rabbits, Briscoe and Logan, are another job to do every
day, but I enjoy having them as part of my household. My hope is that
Fluffy, wherever she is, has noticed how much I've learned and how I am
making amends to her. Happy Easter, Fluffy.
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