​A Brief History Of Rabbits

The original European wild rabbits evolved several thousand years ago in the red, shaded area of the world known as Iberia. In fact the visiting Phoenician merchants referred to part of Iberia as 'I-shephan-im' which means land of the rabbits. This was translated as 'Hispania' or as we know it - Spain. The scientific name for rabbits is 'Oryctolagus cuniculus' which sounds much more complicated than it actually is because it means 'a hare-like digger of underground passages'.

Life was peaceful for the rabbits until the Romans arrived in Spain during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century B.C. Much to the rabbits dismay the Romans quickly cottoned on to the idea of farming them in a practise known as cuniculture. Initially they kept them in fenced off scrubby areas, but using the first known example of a now standard prison escape tactic, the rabbits kept tunneling out! It wasn't long before every rabbit enclosure was as closely guarded as the emperor's own palace. 

The increasing trade amongst countries by sea and land helped to introduce rabbits to every continent except for Antarctica. Humans were now getting good at growing crops and as more land was cultivated into fields full of food, humans inadvertently provided rabbits with ideal habitats to live in. Combined with their famously fast breeding rate this ensured that they established themselves quickly wherever they went.

The domestication of rabbits is believed to have begun when medieval monks began to keep rabbits in cages for food. Newly born rabbits, Laurices, were not considered to be meat and were therefore allowed to be eaten during Lent. Monks tend to be dedicated fellows and it wasn't long before they were studiously selecting and breeding rabbits to create new fur colours.
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The industrial revolution meant many people moving from the countryside into towns and they brought their rabbits with them. As a pair of rabbits can produce up to 90kgs of meat a year they were an important source of food

Farming Rabbits

Rabbit has been a traditional type of meat across Europe. It is an easy animal to rear, and when kept outdoors with fresh air it doesn’t suffer from many of the problems that intensively reared rabbits do. We are strongly apposed to intensive rearing of any animal and dont agree that Rabbits should be kept like this:

Sadly rabbit meat has become less popular now that as animals they have become more associated as pets, like a cat or a dog.

Rabbits can be easily reared at home if you want to start producing your own meat although we do also sell many baby rabbits as pets and use some of them as therapy animals.

Rabbit Facts

• Rabbit meat is actually highly ecological. A little known fact is that with the same quantity of hay and water you can produce 1kg of beef or instead you can produce 6kg of rabbit meat. In addition rabbits produce very little methane. Unlike their cows!
• ​Root vegetables aren't a natural part of a rabbit's diet - carrots are high in sugar so should only be fed occasionally and in small amounts
• A rabbit hop - when they jump and twist, and kick their feet - is called a binky
• They can turn their ears 180 degrees, enabling them to pinpoint the exact location of a sound
• Bunnies have almost 360 degree vision but they are born with their eyes shut
• Rabbits are banned from some ferries, such as Brittany Ferries. It is believed the superstition against rabbits on ships dates back to the 17th century when - legend has it - a rabbit being carried for food chewed through the hull of a ship, causing the deaths of many sailors

Future Plans for our Rabbits

We are currently undertaking renovations to improve our rabbit area and as part of this we moved our rabbits to a new location. They promptly escaped by borrowing into the ground under their area and created a vast network and many babies!!

​This gave us a great idea how we could safely keep our rabbits on the ground and we will be working on that plan for next year!