Cuniculture

Cuniculture is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising domestic rabbits as livestock for their meat, fur, or wool. Cuniculture is also employed by rabbit fanciers and hobbyists in the development and betterment of rabbit breeds and the exhibition of those efforts. Scientists practice cuniculture in the use and management of rabbits as medical models in research. Cuniculture has been practiced all over the world since at least the 5th century.Armenia2009Macedonia2013France2015Germany2017Japan2016India2016Poland2009Bangladesh2013Hungary2015 Cuniculture is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising domestic rabbits as livestock for their meat, fur, or wool. Cuniculture is also employed by rabbit fanciers and hobbyists in the development and betterment of rabbit breeds and the exhibition of those efforts. Scientists practice cuniculture in the use and management of rabbits as medical models in research. Cuniculture has been practiced all over the world since at least the 5th century. An abundance of ancient rabbits may have played a part in the naming of Spain. Phoenician sailors visiting its coast around the 12th century BC mistook the European rabbit for the familiar rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) of their homeland. They named their discovery i-shepan-ham, meaning 'land of hyraxes'. A theory exists (though it is somewhat controversial) that a corruption of this name, used by the Romans, became Hispania, the Latin name for the Iberian Peninsula. Domestication of the European rabbit rose slowly from a combination of game-keeping and animal husbandry. Among the numerous foodstuffs imported by sea to Rome during her domination of the Mediterranean were shipments of rabbits from Spain.:450 Romans also imported ferrets for rabbit hunting, and the Romans then distributed rabbits and the habit of rabbit keeping to the rest of Italy, to France, and then across the Roman Empire, including the British Isles.:42 Rabbits were kept in both walled areas as well as more extensively in game-preserves. In the British Isles, these preserves were known as warrens or garths, and rabbits were known as coneys, to differentiate them from the similar hares (a separate species).:342–343 The term warren was also used as a name for the location where hares, partridges and pheasants were kept, under the watch of a game keeper called a warrener. In order to confine and protect the rabbits, a wall or thick hedge might be constructed around the warren, or a warren might be established on an island.:341–344 A warrener was responsible for controlling poachers and other predators and would collect the rabbits with snares, nets, hounds (such as greyhounds), or by hunting with ferrets.:343 With the rise of falconry, hawks and falcons were also used to collect rabbits and hares. While under the warren system, rabbits were managed and harvested, they were not domesticated. The practice of rabbit domestication also came from Rome. Christian monasteries throughout Europe and the Middle East kept rabbits since at least the 5th century. (Pope Gregory stated in a Papal Edict of the year 600 AD that fetal rabbits were permissible to eat during the Lenten fast, greatly enhancing their popularity, and it is from this date that the true domestication of rabbits is counted.):346 While rabbits might be allowed to wander freely within the monastery walls, a more common method was the employment of rabbit courts or rabbit pits. A rabbit court was a walled area lined with brick and cement, while a pit was much the same, only less well-lined, and more sunken.:347–350 Individual boxes or burrow-spaces could line the wall. Rabbits would be kept in a group in these pits or courts, and individuals collected when desired for eating or pelts. From these pits, which did not allow for easy cleaning, ready handling of rabbits, or for selective breeding, rabbit keepers transitioned to individual hutches or pens, which were originally made of wood but are now more frequently made of metal in order to allow for better sanitation. Rabbits were typically kept as part of the household livestock by peasants and villagers throughout Europe. Husbandry of the rabbits, including collecting weeds and grasses for fodder, typically fell to the children of the household or farmstead. These rabbits were largely 'common' or 'meat' rabbits and not of a particular breed, although regional strains and types did arise. Some of these strains remain as regional breeds, such as the Gothland of Sweden,:190 while others, such as the Land Kaninchen, a spotted rabbit of Germany, have become extinct.:15 Another rabbit type that standardized into a breed was the Brabancon, a meat rabbit of the region of Limbourg and what is now Belgium. Rabbits of this breed were bred for the Ostend port market, destined for London markets.:10 The development of the refrigerated shipping vessels led to the eventual collapse of the European meat rabbit trade, as the over-population of feral rabbits in Australia could now be harvested and sold. The Brabancon is now considered extinct, although a descendant, the Dutch breed, remains a popular small rabbit for the pet trade.:9 In addition to being harvested for meat, properly prepared rabbit pelts were also an economic factor. Both wild rabbits and domestic rabbit pelts were valued, and it followed that pelts of particular rabbits would be more highly prized. As far back as 1631, price differentials were noted between ordinary rabbit pelts and the pelts of quality 'riche' rabbit in the Champagne region of France. (This regional type would go on to be recognized as the Champagne D'Argent, the silver rabbit of Champagne.):68 Among the earliest of the commercial breeds was the Angora, which some say may have developed in the Carpathian Mountains. They made their way to England, where during the rule of King Henry VIII, laws banned the exportation of long-haired rabbits as a national treasure. In 1723, long haired rabbits were imported to southern France by English sailors, who described the animals as originally coming from the Angora region of Turkey. Thus two distinct strains arose, one in France and one in England.:48–49 European explorers and sailors took rabbits with them to new ports around the world, and brought new varieties back to Europe and England with them. With the second voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1494, European domestic livestock were brought to the New World. Rabbits, along with goats and other hardy livestock, were frequently released on islands to produce a food supply for later ships.:151–152 The importations occasionally met with disastrous results, such as in the devastation in Australia. While cattle and horses were used across the socio-economic spectrum, and especially were concentrated among the wealthy, rabbits were kept by lower-income classes and peasants. This is reflected in the names given to the breeds that eventually arose in the colonized areas. From the Santa Duromo mountains of Brazil comes the Rustico, which is known in the United States as the Brazilian rabbit.:115 The Criollo rabbit comes from Mexico.:139 With the rise of scientific animal breeding in the late 1700s, led by Robert Bakewell (among others), distinct livestock breeds were developed for specific purposes.:354–355