(IN): High death rate among young rabbits

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High death rate among young rabbitsBy: Maneka Gandhi

 

Article published on 2/23/2009 11:50:42 PM IST

 

Some years ago, the government of India decided to encourage rabbit farming.

Bureaucrats made dozens of trips abroad to see how other countries grew

rabbits and did their rounds of nightclubs and shopping malls. They learnt

nothing from the environmental disaster that rabbit farming has created in

most countries, announcing that the government was going to promote rabbits

for meat.

 

After two decades most of India refuses to eat rabbit meat. But thousands of

people, encouraged by illiterate politicians and the nonsensical agriculture

ministry, have been pushed into starting small rabbit growing factories

encouraged by the subsidies given and the promise of a buyback. No breeder

is trained to handle or understand rabbits. They are told that they can

“grow” them anywhere with any food in any weather.

 

The government touts it as an activity that can supplements one’s income.

The slipshod haphazard way in which they are bred makes their suffering of

these delicate animals intense as they die quickly and some foolish yokel

who thought he would spend the rest of his life watching them mate,

proliferate and turn into meat , is now in debt to the bank. An average unit

folds in 18 months and the victim, apart from the rabbit is the tribal

conned in the name of “self employment”.

 

These rabbits are not Indian. It is forbidden to catch, breed or kill any

Indian hare as they are protected under the Wildlife Act. These were

imported into the country in 1977 when some idiot of a Minister in the first

Janata government imported rabbits from Poland, New Zealand and Russia and

established a Central Research Station to encourage rabbit farming. Twenty

years later, even though rabbit farming associations have sprung up all over

India, most breeders admit that the experiment has been a failure.

 

But the cruelty continues. One of the main websites on Rabbit Farming in

India giving guidelines to Indians on Rabbit farming reads:

“Rabbit Farming can be done anywhere at farm, backyard, on home terrace. You

can feed almost anything to the Rabbit including waste vegetables from the

market, tree leaves, cattle grass or even kitchen scrap. Rabbits eat their

faeces in the early hours of morning directly from their anus through lips.

Thus replenish vitamins. No skilled labour is required for this project.

Rabbits deliver 6-8 babies every 30 days when she is six months old and

15-20 babies every 30 days in her second year. In 5 years she will deliver

34 times minimum. Rabbits are not affected by climate conditions or

diseases. They never create nuisance by way of abnormal sound and bad odor.

Rabbits can be grown in cages. As such, it is quite suitable to grow rabbits

in the high population prevailing township areas and in the backyard of the

houses..Slaughter weight of rabbit is about 2 kg which can be achieved in 12

to 15 weeks even though life span is 7-8 years. “All rubbish. Rabbits are

very picky eaters, fall ill very easily, and do not eat their feces unless

they are lacking something in their diet, need lots of space, smell like

hell and die when the temperature is unregulated.

 

Beauty without cruelty sent an expedition to the All India Rabbit Farming

Institute in Pune which trains people on how to breed rabbits for meat.

The AIRFI also sell rabbits to the trainees and offers to buy back meat. In

reality hundreds of small and marginal farmers have been cheated by similar

institutes which never bought back rabbits or meat. This is how this

training institute treats the rabbits:

 

“The rabbits were crowded on an open terrace in the sweltering heat. The

terrace had a tattered sheet of plastic on top. A tap on the terrace was

leaking and the dirty water collected in pools around the rabbits. A bag of

cauliflower leaves was left open on one side and leaves which were obviously

days old were scattered all over the floor.

 

On the second visit to the institute the rabbits had been moved to a dark,

unventilated room. There were 5-6 rabbits crammed into each cage. The cages

were so small the animals could not move. Three long bamboo poles supported

by 6 gas cylinders and the cages rested on these poles – the slightest

movement by a rabbit would have sent the cage crashing down. The cages were

wire mesh on the bottom as well – the rabbits’ feet were cut and sore.

Rabbit droppings and urine littered the floor under the cages and the room

stank. One rabbit was kept separately as he was sick. The BWC inspectors

were told that the Institute did not have doctors. The owner told the team

that their rabbits cost nothing to keep, did not require medical attention “

 

The team visited Vijaylakshmi Hi Tech farms in Satara , Maharashtra. This

“Hi Tech” factory keeps the animals in crowded dirty cages and feed them

vegetable waste thrown away from the vegetable markets. A rabbit absolutely

has to have fresh vegetable material – a mix of vegetables, leaves, grains.

Filthy waste picked up by trash removers is death for them. Fifty percent of

rabbits die from infection due to contaminated feed.

 

The female is mated when she is just 4 months old and when she can''t have

seven litters a year anymore, which means a state of constant pregnancy, she

is killed – she is usually only eighteen months old and has already produced

100 children. Annually about 55% of the females die of illness anyway. The

males are kept for about 2 years and then killed.

 

There is a high death rate among young rabbits; 15% of the babies die at

birth. 10% of them die when they are taken away from their mothers.

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destined

for the meat trade are killed at just 8-11 weeks as soon as they reach a

weight of 2 kg.

 

These gentle, friendly animals will never experience fresh air, grass under

their feet or be able to run and jump. They are housed in filthy, wire mesh

cages raised a meter from the ground, often stacked two or three tiers high.

They live in cages with a height of only 38cm with the floor space of one

foolscap paper.

 

The small cage sizes restrict movement resulting in poor development of the

thigh bone. Adults suffer distortions of the backbone. Respiratory and skin

infections are common as is diarrhea and urine burns. Many have injuries

from fighting, ripped ears, broken bones and bites etc. The mesh flooring of

the cages damages the feet resulting in abscesses. The stench of

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from

the urine soaked floors, irritate the eyes and lead to painful infections.

No vets exist in any “farm”

Slaughter methods vary. Pulled out by their ears, some animals are killed by

being hit over the back of the head with a stick before having their throats

slit. Some struggle for minutes as they bleed to death. Others are forced

onto a table and have their heads cut off. Some are simply killed by

repeated blows to the head. All this is in full view of other rabbits. Some

are shot in the head with a handheld electrical device. They can be seen

twitching, struggling, shaking and screaming with their eyes wide open

before they die.

 

At the end of all this cruelty what happens? Since no one wants to eat

rabbit meat, this meat is sold to roadside meat shops cheaply and they sell

it as chicken!

 

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