Rabbit housing
Domesticated rabbits descend from European wild rabbits. European wild rabbits live in groups depending upon resources available. The more resources that are available, the less tightly they group, and actually prefer quite a bit of distance from the other rabbits. A literature review concluded that wild rabbits are either dominant or subordinate and the subordinate animals live in a constant state of stress and fear when in a group setting. Dominant animals require submission from subordinate daily, and if not performed, leads to violent fighting.
Domesticated rabbits allowed to live in colonies showed much aggression to each other, and the reviewers came to the conclusion that rabbits are very aggressively territorial animals and for their safety, should be housed individually. The Social Nature of European Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
"However, anecdotal reports of aggression in rabbits, often without an obvious cause and resulting in serious injuries, during socialization attempts in the laboratory have prevented widespread social housing of the species." "The literature on the subject is relatively brief, considering the number of animals used in research facilities each year, and many of the published reports are subjective assessments rather than well-controlled studies that provide conclusive evidence regarding social housing benefits, risks, and methods for this species." "In such groupings, the dominant buck routinely patrols a territory, and as often as daily, requires a submissive act from all other rabbits, both male and female, sharing the same space.38 These submissive acts are manifested by the subordinate animals retreating or fleeing from the dominant buck's advances. Retreating is required to demonstrate submission, and any failure to retreat prompts an attack.38" All it takes is one missed social cue "In contrast, all adult animals demonstrated aggressive behavior toward one another, with no difference in frequency of aggressive behavior patterns between males and females in a large fenced-in area.36" *~Stephanie Hughes- quoting "The Social Nature of European Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)"
We've mentioned in here previously that rabbits live in warrens, but you do not have the space like a wild rabbit does to avoid someone else ,Colony setups recommend something like 50 sqft per doe of unbroken space, iirc People trying to bond their rabbits are trying to do a colony setup without the sufficient space to do so safely . Some rabbits aren't even interested in breeding until 1, Circling is territorial. Unlikely, but not impossible *~ Cave.Lepus Tomias Skyewillow
Or more .. if they like to keep approx 50feet apart naturally. It's more like 2500sqfeet per rabbit for them.to be most comfortable.. basically they want their own 3 bedroom house
reference behaviors The preference of growing rabbits for different housing systems has also been studied. A big problem for growing rabbits, particularly at the practical farm level, is the quantity and quality of available space and the possibility for rabbits to show “normal” locomotory behaviour (Stauffacher,1992) and development (Drescher, 1992). According to Lehman (1991) in the rabbits reared two per cage, the ability to perform hopping as well as bone integrity were impaired. Bessei and Rivaletti (1997) used operant conditioning (pressing a bar) to verify the preferences and motivation of weaned rabbits to gain feed and to choose the amount of available space: from 545 to 3150 cm (214.5 sqin to 1240.157sqin) 2 . The animals learned quickly to open a feeder through bar pressing, although they found it easier in a reduced space than in a larger one. Thus the rabbits worked actively to reduce the floor space. However the frequency of bar pressing to reduce floor space was lower than that to increase the floor space. The author concludes that the preferred space may be somewhere in between the two extremes of the test situations.
RECENT ADVANCES IN RABBIT SCIENCES] 2.6. Behaviour of growing rabbits Marina VERGA , Fabio LUZI , Zsolt SZENDRÖ
Istituto di Zootecnica, Facoltà di Medicina Veterinaria, Via Celoria 1020133 Milano, Italy University of Kaposvár, Faculty of Animal Science, Guba Sándor Str. 407400 Kaposvár, Hungary
Matics
et al.
(2004) recorded the choices of different groups of rabbits with different group sizes(18 to 30 and 8 to 24) and space allowance (12 to 20rabbits/m sq and 5.3 to 16 rabbits/m sq
) from weaning(at three weeks) until ten weeks of age. They used a free choice design with cages of different sizes (500x 300 - 600 - 900 - 1200 mm) with swing doors between them. Rabbits preferred one of the smallest cages, with a space allowance of 60 - 70 rabbits/m sq and only a few of them chose the largest cage. After5 - 6 weeks of age they began to spread into all of the cages, however the smallest cages received a significantly higher preference until the end of the study period. Princz et al. (2005) observed the preference of young growing rabbits housed in cage-blocks of 2msq divided into 4 cages varying in heights of 20, 30,40 cm and an open-top. Fewest rabbits (less than 17%) were observed in the open top, and rabbits chose the higher cages when they were active and the lower ones when they were resting, regardless of the space allowance (16 or 12 rabbits/m²).
note: my cages are smallest for New Zealand 576 sq in, and our larger doe and litter are 864sqin, and 900 sqin.
