Rabbit production
The cuniculture includes the systems of the production of products of rabbits . The main product is rabbit meat. The animals also serve as suppliers of fur and angora wool . In commercial keeping hybrids and not pedigree rabbits are used. According to estimates by the FAO, German producers fattened around 14 million rabbits in 2011. The use of rabbits for commercial purposes has developed rapidly since the mid-1980s: rabbits are now also intensively kept in cages.
The Federal Statistical Office does not collect any data on rabbit production in Germany. The organization Vier Pfoten states that, according to estimates by experts, around 41,000 tons of rabbit meat are consumed and around 30 million fattening rabbits are slaughtered. 60 percent of the amount consumed is produced by hobby and pedigree rabbit breeders, 20 percent is produced by fatteners, and 20 percent is imported (from France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy and China).
Animal welfare
Legal minimum requirements specifically for keeping rabbits will be introduced for the first time from August 11, 2014 in the Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Husbandry Ordinance in Germany. Up until then, keeping rabbits in simple wire cages ( flat decks ) was also allowed in Germany; since then, cages for fattening rabbits must have a step width of at least 8 mm and a maximum gap or hole width of 11 mm.
The European Food Safety Authority is proposing to enlarge and improve the structure of the traditional cages to promote rabbit welfare .
literature
- Dieter Dress: Investigations into the influence of rabbits of the New Zealand White breed with varying degrees of heat tolerance on the fattening performance of their offspring at higher ambient temperatures. Hannover 1986, DNB 870807765 (Dissertation TiHo Hannover 1986, 88 pages).
- Wilhelm black screwdriver: The economic importance of the German rabbit breeding . Kallmünz about Regensburg 1940, DNB 57122587X ( dissertation Hindenburg University Nuremberg 1940, 143 pages).
Web links
- ARD Mediathek, Cruel cage keeping - How rabbits are tortured in the fattening (video)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Albert Schweitzer Foundation, Rabbit (article with further sources)
- ↑ Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests, studies on animal-friendly rabbit fattening
- ↑ Vier Pfoten Germany, Rabbit Meat in Germany ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Fifth Ordinance amending the Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Husbandry Ordinance
- ↑ Rabbit cages: EFSA identifies animal welfare problems. In: efsa.europa.eu . January 9, 2020, accessed January 15, 2020 .
