Thoughtful or distant farmer: Exploring the influence of human-animal relationships on rabbit stress, behaviour, and emotional responses in two distinct living environments.

Both the nature of the human-animal relationship (HAR) and housing conditions significantly impact the welfare of farmed animals. To evaluate the influence of HAR on the behaviour, emotions and stress of rabbits () in two distinct outdoor living environments, we allocated 144 young rabbits to four groups (CPX-H, CPX-N, SPL-H, SPL-N) differing in the living environments (CPX for complex, and SPL for simple). The treatment by human (H) involved daily provision of additional food resources and stroking (thoughtful farmer).

Effect of outdoor grazing-area access time and enrichment on space and pasture use, behaviour, health and growth traits of weaned rabbits.

Providing rabbits with a grassy outdoor area allows them to express a broad variety of specific behaviours such as grazing where grazeable herbage persists. However, rabbits that graze are also exposed to external stressors. Controlled outdoor access time may help preserve the grassland resource, while a hiding place may offer the rabbits a secure space.

Part-time grouping of rabbit does in enriched housing: effects on performances, injury occurrence and enrichment use.

Collective housing is perceived as a possible way to improve rabbit welfare, especially among adult females, which are normally individually housed. Part-time group housing seems to allow a better balance between welfare and health than continuous group housing, but practical implementation and consequences for reproductive performance have not been extensively studied. The aim of this work was to compare weight, feed intake, litter size, injury occurrence, body integrity, and spatial location of female rabbits housed part-time in group housing (PGH group, n = 32) or housed individually (IH group, n = 8).

Effect of access to outdoor grazing and stocking density on space and pasture use, behaviour, reactivity, and growth traits of weaned rabbits.

In a context of evolving concern over housing conditions of farmed rabbits, we developed a housing system that allows access to an outdoor area. The aim was to study the health status, growth and behaviour of rabbits raised at two stocking densities with access to a paddock, or not. We distributed 299 weaned rabbits in four groups (YH: 100, NH: 99, YL: 50 and NL: 50) using a 2 × 2 factorial design including access (Y: yes) or not (N: not) to a 23 m paddock and the indoor stocking density (H, high: 17 or L, low: 9 rabbits/m).

Evolution of gut microbial community through reproductive life in female rabbits and investigation of the link with offspring survival.

The digestive microbiota plays a decisive role in shaping and preserving health throughout life. Rabbit younglings are born with a sterile digestive tract but then it gets progressively colonised by the microbiota of the nursing mother, by entering in contact with or ingesting the maternal droppings present in the nest. Here we posit that (i) offspring survival and (ii) lifespan of female rabbits are linked to how diverse their microbiota are.