Exposed wire floors and other shortcomings of modern rabbit breeding in the review of Czech veterinarians

The number of pathological findings made by veterinarians of the Czech Republic during the examination of rabbits in slaughterhouses showed weaknesses in modern industrial rabbit breeding.

In their article published on the MDPI portal, a group of authors from the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, the State Veterinary Office (Czech Republic) and the University of Messina, Italy, shared their observations and conclusions about the problems in modern commercial rabbit production.

“Veterinary inspection of animals and their carcasses at the slaughterhouse is one of the most widely used tools of veterinary supervision and has been used the longest.

The main purpose of these inspections is to identify animals whose MEAT and organs are not suitable for human consumption and remove them from the food chain.

However, a veterinary examination is also of great importance in terms of epizootology and HEALTH checks of farm animals.

To date, the potential of veterinary inspection in identifying and reflecting the welfare of farm animals as a topical issue is an aspect that has not been fully appreciated and remains underutilized.

The fact that all food animals must undergo a veterinary inspection makes slaughterhouses an ideal place to collect comprehensive information. This provides a unique opportunity to improve the surveillance of health risks from both a human and animal perspective, as well as to effectively monitor the welfare of farm animals.

The indicators of well-being, which can be used to infer the physical condition of rabbits, can be monitored much more easily and more accurately during post-mortem examination of carcasses than in live animals on farms.

First of all, this applies to various injuries, bruises, scratches, abscesses and dermatitis. Such data provide a source of information about the conditions prevailing during the transport of rabbits to the slaughterhouse (acute injuries) and at the farm of origin (chronic processes).

The presence of fresh injuries is indicative of the level of well-being during transport, slaughter, stunning and slaughter itself. Any increase in the frequency and severity of such injuries is indicative of misconduct on the part of the carrier or slaughterhouse operator. A careful analysis of the nature and frequency of pathological findings can be the basis for deciding whether corrective measures need to be applied and what such specific measures would consist of.

Although inspection reports (particularly post mortem reports) provide a wealth of information, this potential is still not used systematically in most countries.

The scientific literature is also relatively sparse in terms of the collection and analysis of data pertaining to pathological findings in slaughtered rabbits.

An exception in terms of volume is the long-term Polish study, which states that 0.48% of all rabbit carcasses examined in Polish slaughterhouses in 2010–2018 were deemed unfit for human consumption. The most common causes are sepsis and pyemia, emaciation, upper respiratory tract disease, coccidiosis. The incidence of coccidiosis and other parasitic diseases decreased during the study period, although there was an increase in the number of cases of sepsis.

Rabbit health monitoring studies on farms indicate that rabbits commonly develop two major health problems: Respiratory Syndrome (predominantly in adults) and Digestive Syndrome (more common in young rabbits). Diseases of the digestive tract are a common cause of death.

For example, the widespread pathogenic bacterium Clostridium perfringens is a common causative agent of intestinal disease in rabbit farms. Other pathological processes that affect rabbits in industrial plants include subcutaneous abscesses, gastrointestinal parasitosis, alopecia and nephritis (pathogens Toxoplasma gondii and Encephalitozoon cuniculi).

This study was aimed at assessing the characteristic results of veterinary examination of rabbits slaughtered at slaughterhouses in the Czech Republic between 2010 and 2019, according to their location and nature of damage, as well as assessing the health and well-being of rabbits raised on a farm based on these conclusions.

The largest Czech company produces 130,000 rabbits annually

The health and welfare of farmed rabbits was studied based on 1,876,929 rabbits slaughtered at nine slaughterhouses in the Czech Republic between 2010 and 2019.

The rabbits came from 80 farms, of which one company supplied more than 50% of the total rabbit production in the Czech Republic, i.e. about 130,000 rabbits annually.

The production of another 19 farmers ranges from 1,000 to 10,000 rabbits per year, the annual production of another 21 farmers is between 100 and 1,000 rabbits, while 39 small farmers supply up to 100 rabbits per year.

On farms, rabbits were kept in cages and fed pellets. Transportation to the slaughterhouse was carried out by authorized carriers by road using transport containers and trucks specially designed and approved for the transport of rabbits.

The majority of rabbits (88%) were transported less than 300 km (63% of rabbits less than 100 km) and no journey exceeded eight hours. In all slaughterhouses, rabbits were electrically stunned in the HEAD only.

The overall health level of rabbits slaughtered in slaughterhouses was controlled by calculating the ratio of the number of detected pathologies to the number of rabbits slaughtered in slaughterhouses. Data on the results of post-mortem veterinary inspections carried out in Czech slaughterhouses were obtained retrospectively from the information system of the State Veterinary Administration of the Czech Republic.

The ratio of the number of detected pathologies to the total number of rabbits slaughtered at the slaughterhouse was 0.0214. This means that for every 100 rabbits, there were 2.14 results documenting deterioration in health and/or well-being leading to pathological changes found during post-mortem examination at the slaughterhouse.

Interestingly, the highest transport-related mortality was found in broiler chickens (0.37%) and rabbits (0.19%), with lower mortality in pigs (0.07%), cattle (0.02%), ducks (0.08%) and turkeys (0.15%).

These results show that broiler chickens and ill-health rabbits die during transport to the slaughterhouse much more frequently than other species, or in other words, it is mostly the animals that are in good condition that survive the transport.

Consequently, healthy animals are then slaughtered, as evidenced by the small amount of pathological data obtained after slaughter at the slaughterhouse, compared with other types of meat animals.

The rabbit is an extremely sensitive animal, as evidenced by the high mortality rate during transport, as well as the relatively high mortality on farms, especially in the post-weaning period.

A quarter of young rabbits die during fattening

The short lifespan of rabbits (finishing is completed before the effects of rearing conditions show up in organ changes) and the high mortality during rearing and transport (elimination of ill individuals) are reflected in the statistics collected at slaughterhouses.

However, despite the relatively small number of pathological findings made in rabbits during slaughter inspection, certain categories of findings can be identified that have a higher frequency and are indicative of specific deterioration in health and well-being during rearing or transport.

Findings on the trunk and extremities were the most frequent, and almost exclusively - traumatic changes, which is undesirable from the point of view of animal protection.

The cause may be the animal husbandry system, which causes, among other things, injuries to the limbs, as well as the method of catching rabbits and placing them in shipping containers before transport, and the method of unloading rabbits from shipping containers at the slaughterhouse, during which injuries, bruises, dislocations and fractures occur.

Wire floors are a common cause of injuries and diseases (parakeratosis, pododermatitis), so it is advisable to cover them with at least mats.

High stocking density, leading to increased aggressiveness of rabbits, is clearly undesirable.

Inadequate cell sizes limit the possibilities for movement and natural activity and posture, which leads to abnormal development of the rabbit skeleton (bone deformities, bone tissue hypoplasia).

Equipping cages or pens with enrichment features (chewing sticks, elevated platforms, tunnels, branches) has a 100% positive effect, since the elements contribute significantly to stress reduction and act to prevent aggressive behavior and behavioral anomalies such as cage chewing.

Rabbits that were provided with alternative housing (lower stocking density, floor with plastic gratings) had a lower incidence of injury.

The handling of animals during loading and unloading is in itself a risk factor for injury and death. The risk increases with large shipments as staff become more rude when handling large numbers of animals.

Pathological findings were found in the kidneys and liver during examination of the internal organs: almost exclusively chronic manifestations in the kidneys (99.9%). Chronic changes in the kidneys and liver are probably caused by an imbalance in the diet in relation to the needs of certain animals during intensive fattening.

The correct functioning of the digestive system and therefore of the whole organism is influenced not only by the composition of the diet and the appropriate ratio of nutrients, but also by the amount of feed received, the method of processing the feed, as well as the structure and size of its individual particles.

Research results show that reducing the content of starch and protein in favor of fiber has a beneficial effect on the digestion process and fermentation in the appendix.

Prevention of digestive problems and subsequent metabolic disorders and organ damage lies in the correct composition of the diet: higher content of digestible and indigestible fiber (crude fiber 14-18%), lower content of starch (less than 14%) and protein (15-16% ), the addition of suitable herbal supplements is recommended.

Multiple abscesses (84.5%) and emaciation (14.9%) were also found.

Subcutaneous abscesses are a common problem on commercial rabbit farms. They can be localized in rabbits throughout the body, but usually appear on the hind limbs and in the neck. As a rule, they arise as a result of infection of injuries received during the fattening process as a result of a mutual bite or a fight between rabbits living together.

With regard to wasting, there are many causes that are associated with some other pathological conditions, such as respiratory tract infections, gastroenteritis, nephritis, coccidiosis of the liver and intestines. Depletion can also be the result of competitive relationships associated with access to food during rearing, preventing certain individuals from getting enough nutrients.

Therefore, these are urgent problems that need to be addressed at the level of modification of the content and hygiene on rabbit farms.”