Rabbit Welfare

[zigs]

Heard a young lady on national radio yesterday, she's spending the day in a cage to highlight the plight of Rabbits that don't have enough space for exercise and recreation.

She's doing it at a Garden Centre near me so I jumped in the car and went on down there to get some publicity photos and help spread the word.

 

[Jed]

Good on Rosa and to you zigs for bringing it to peoples attention. Without this publicity animals will continue to suffer. I hope conditions and attitudes will change.I certainly hope people will help out and donate.


We've had all types of protests in Tasmania with one lass lying in a sow stall over night to try and get the government to ban sow stalls. Most people would be totally unaware.

 

[zigs]

She was saying on the radio that the hutches are a hangover from Victorian England, where they'd be kept before being killed for the table.

A lot of folk think its ok to keep them in there all the time, not realising they need space, company and stimulation.

 

[claudine]

Thank you for sharing this! I always find it very heartwarming whenever I hear of people who care about animals and don't treat them as toys. We really should do something to stop the suffering. And the more we talk about it, the better.
Personally, I think that it would be beautiful if all people became vegetarians
As for rabbits, I feel so sorry for them! Living in a cage must be awful It's the same with hens that can't run freely.

 

[zigs]

I think that it would be beautiful if all people became vegetarians

We'll have to if the population keeps growing, takes too much land and food to rear meat. Half the reason they are keeping things in cages already. You should see the beef production in America, cows never get to see real grass.

 

[claudine]

This is heartbreaking My boyfriend's father was in a slaughterhouse once and he told me that he saw a little cow there that was literally shaking from fear. Whenever I think about it, I'm shaking too.
I will never eat meat. Also, whenever I buy eggs, I always make sure that they're free-range. I wish I could do something more though.

 

[Jed]

We'll have to if the population keeps growing, takes too much land and food to rear meat. Half the reason they are keeping things in cages already. You should see the beef production in America, cows never get to see real grass.

I was horrified to see how it was done in the USA after seeing this documentary.

This is the trailer

Full length doco...

 

[morlogs]

We'll have to if the population keeps growing, takes too much land and food to rear meat. Half the reason they are keeping things in cages already. You should see the beef production in America, cows never get to see real grass.

Mornin' Zigs. With all due respect that's not entirely true. Attached are two pics that are similar to scenes that I see everyday where I live in America.

 

[zigs]

Good evening Morlogs,

That's good to see, didn't mean it was all intensively reared, like the UK, you can still see animals in the fields, yet we've got some horrible battery farms over here, they are all fenced off with barbed wire & locked gates, not to keep the animals in, its to stop anyone seeing what goes on.

We've got a huge slaughterhouse here too, hidden in the trees on the outskirts of town, no signs to say what it is, just initials for the lorry drivers to follow.

 

[ACSAPA]

Mornin' Zigs. With all due respect that's not entirely true. Attached are two pics that are similar to scenes that I see everyday where I live in America.View attachment 874 View attachment 875

True, a large chunk of Northern Florida looks like that. When I rode to Orlando to go to Walt Disney World ,there were miles and miles of grass and cows.

 

[zigs]

Also nice to hear, but according to this, 99% of meat in the USA is factory farmed

http://www.farmforward.com/farming-forward/factory-farming

 

[TheCrazyPlantLady]

Rabbits are one of those pets that people get for their kids because they look cute, are small, and live in cages. What could be easier? They do not stop to find out what care is needed, or stop to think that the kids are probably not going to enjoy keeping the rabbit cage clean, and will get bored with taking the rabbit out to play after the first two weeks.

Rabbits are actually quite smart and can be trained. My aunt had a rabbit that had the run of the house, and she had trained to use a cat litter box. However, one thing that you cannot train a rabbit to do is to not chew on electrical wires, which makes having a "free range" rabbit around the house a difficult proposition.

Personally, I think they are one of the many types of animals that should not be kept as pets, but that is just my opinion. I don't think any animal that has to be kept in a cage should be kept for human pleasure. I also personally think that animal cruelty laws should be much more stringent and include jail time.

Thanks Zigs, for sharing this. And I do agree about the factory farming - Canada is the same way. While you see many fields of free range cattle, that is only a small percentage of what is out there. The majority of Canadian produced beef is factory farmed. I don't understand how anyone can think it's ok to treat any living thing that way. But I can't see it ever changing. Those of us that think are far outnumbered by those who don't, and prefer not to.

 

[morlogs]

Good evening Morlogs,

That's good to see, didn't mean it was all intensively reared, like the UK, you can still see animals in the fields, yet we've got some horrible battery farms over here, they are all fenced off with barbed wire & locked gates, not to keep the animals in, its to stop anyone seeing what goes on.

We've got a huge slaughterhouse here too, hidden in the trees on the outskirts of town, no signs to say what it is, just initials for the lorry drivers to follow.

Right Zigs and I'm sure that there's plenty of examples of your point here. I think I'll leave the politics alone and just head back to the veggie threads before the flamin' starts.

 

[zigs]

Quite right Morlogs, this has wandered off from its Rabbity beginings

Right, back to the garden

 

[Kansas Terri]

In America, most beef animals are born on and raised on grass. This is both cheap and effective. When the beef animals are older they are moved to a feedlot where they walk around and eat corn and silage until they are fat. It is a poor farmer that mistreats their livestock, if only because the livestock grow more slowly and in general do not do as well. Most of the farmers who stay in business are pretty good at what they do, and take pretty good care of their animals. Though, there are a few poor farmers that have not gone out of business yet, and so there are still some pretty shocking pictures out there of neglected or mistreated livestock. It is illegal to mistreat animals, but that does not stop some people!

That being said, the traditional chicken cages for layers really are too small. I firmly believe that a critter of any type should be able to stretch in its cage and walk a step or two, and not all laying hens can.

My children's miniature rabbit lived in a cage and he could ONLY walk a step or two in his cage, but he seemed happy enough: possibly because the kids had him out of his cage a couple of times a week so he got a chance for some proper exercise. They liked to sit on the couch and watch TV, and the rabbit would go back and forth along the sofa and across their laps. When he stopped the kids would pet him and then he would be off again!

In the wild, rabbits stay in burrows excepting for at dawn and at dusk, at which time they come out to eat and drink. I do not think it hurts a rabbit any to stay in a cage, as long as they can exercise some.