Fey Glen

Wit konijn. Jan Mankes (1889-1920)

Hi @redratt! Sorry for the tag but I knew my reply would likely be too long for a comment and I wanted to make sure you got the chance to see my response. As with all my responses, this will be as comprehensive as I can possibly make it.

There's a really significant component here that I think is missing for a lot of folks: rabbits are multipurpose animals. All rabbits of all breeds are (or at least have the capacity to be) multipurpose animals. They aren't your standard pet species where their purposes are almost always limited to things like companionship or sports or work, though - some of their purposes also include things like food for people, food for other animals, and pelts/fur.

You said you can understand culling for meat, but the thing is, you don't really... cull for meat. Well, I mean, you do, if you care about bettering your meat rabbits' efficiency and whatnot. But when it comes to rabbits that aren't meat rabbits, you don't cull specifically for meat. You slaughter or harvest for meat - culling might just be the reason why you do it.

Culling means to take something out of a breeding pool. This can be by soft culling, which means the animal lives but never gets bred, or it can be by terminal culling, which means the animal dies.

Culling for aesthetics is why we have breeds at all in the first place. We as humans have selected certain body types, temperaments, colors, and markings that we want to see in certain animals. Without that, there are so many beautiful breeds we never would've had - such as the rabbit in my pfp, or the breed that I'm raising now (which, as of right now, is a breed currently being raised solely for conservation and aesthetics - though I am trying to somewhat change that).

Which brings us back around to 'culling for meat.' As I said, all rabbits have the capacity to be multipurpose animals, including the purpose of food - be that for humans, or other animals. So with that being the case, let's look at an example.

This is a Dutch rabbit (not my picture). Dutches are one of the most popular and recognizable breeds out there. Dutches definitely wouldn't exist without their markings - their markings are a very significant part of what makes them a breed of their own! Dutches are also known for their versatility, making great pets, being a fun and challenging show breed, and - surprisingly to some - a very viable meat breed for somebody looking to raise their own food despite being low on space.

So, with that being said, tell me what the difference is between these scenarios:

>A person primarily breeds their Dutches for show. When they cull their rabbits, they terminally cull them. Depending on what age they cull them at, those rabbits either become a meal for their snake, or become that person's dinner. They tend to nestbox cull for snakefood rather than growing out their culls, though, because they just don't have the space for so many growouts. They occasionally sell rabbits to other breeders to help offset the costs of feed, but mostly keep their rabbits to themselves. They typically don't sell any of their rabbits as pets.

>A person primarily breeds their Dutches for meat. They also enjoy showing their Dutches, so all of the rabbits they eat as meat are rabbits that don't make the showing or breeding cut. One of the reasons they cull toward the breed standard other than that they enjoy showing themselves, is because it means they can sell some rabbits to other breeders, which helps to offset the costs of feed. They don't often nestbox cull because they generally have enough space available, but if they do, they have a falconer friend who likes to use the dead kits to help train their birds. They might sell a rabbit as a pet if they know who they're selling to, but only if that rabbit has an exceptional temperament.

>A person breeds their Dutches solely for meat. Practically all their litters are destined to become Freezer Camp Attendees (aka... food for the year). They are aware of the breed standard, but don't do anything to necessarily breed toward it. Sometimes they have an exceptionally well marked kit that also ends up having a great body, and when that happens they might choose to sell it to a show breeder or maybe even show it themselves. Otherwise, all kits are destined to be people food as soon as they're big enough.

All three of these people are killing rabbits. All three of these people are eating rabbits. All three of these people are raising a marked breed. All three of these people are, in some way, participating in showing that breed.

So what makes person three the righteous person here? Person two is still primarily breeding to feed themself, they just also are doing so in a way conducive to bettering the breed. Person one is still using all of their killed rabbits for food of some kind, even if that's not their main reason for having rabbits.

Truth is, there really isn't a difference. A dead rabbit is a dead rabbit, and a rabbit eaten is a rabbit eaten. The reason why it's killed and eaten isn't important to the rabbit, so why is it so important to us? Just something to consider.

It's ok to be personally uncomfortable with one reason over another. Thing is, you have to remember that at its core, that reason doesn't actually hold weight where it really matters - that is, to the rabbits in question here. A rabbit doesn't know why it's dying, it just knows that it's dying (and it might not even know that, if the slaughter was done well). It doesn't care why it's dying, it's just dying.

If you still are uncomfortable with it, fair enough. But especially when it comes to rabbits, these marked breeds aren't just worthless things that sit in cages and look pretty all day (or at least shouldn't be, in my opinion). They have plenty of purposes, and it just so happens that their markings play a significant role in which purpose they end up having.

In regards to Scout and what their role in bringing this whole conversation about was because for some reason people still seem to not get it; in their original post about the goats, they made a blanket statement. Sure, context could have said they were talking about goats, but at the end of the day, their official final statement didn't specify that their issue was with goats and/or cattle. Their official statement said that terminally culling a healthy newborn for [in this case, being a male] was something that 'should not happen' (i.e. is bad/wrong/whatever), full stop. As I mentioned in previous posts, they then made it about rabbits specifically by sharing a comment made on their post that was in fact directly about rabbits and the terminal culling of kits based on markings.

Think about how often rabbits are able to breed. Think about how many kits are in each litter. For many breeds, 6+ kits in a litter is the ideal. Even if a person only breeds their rabbits twice per year, that's 12 kits per rabbit every year. Ideally, a person would have at least two does - that brings our total up to 24 kits per year on average. This isn't even counting the breeds that average around 9 kits per litter (that would be 36 kits per year).

Now think about space constraints and financial constraints. People only have so much space for only so many rabbits. Even if they only breed once a year and only have one doe, that's still 12 kits. That's 12 kits that are going to need cage space. Depending on the breed, those kits won't reach a reasonable meat weight until well after they've been weaned, and by that time, bucks need to be kept in separate housing. If a person doesn't have the capability of attempting to keep their does in a colony or tractor, they'll need to keep each individual doe in a cage. That means that person who only started with two rabbits would need to have a minimum of 8 cages in order to grow those kits out, maybe more depending on how fast those kits grow and when they rebreed their doe. 8 cages can cost upwards of $400 if they're new, and still a similar price even if they are used. Now imagine a standard rabbit breeder, who would have likely at a minimum at least 4 does and a buck. 4 does producing an average of 48 kits every year. That means a breeder would need an absolute minimum of 29 cages. That's $1,450 spent just on cages. It's a huge investment to have a large amount of rabbits, and it's a huge investment to be making on kits that are obvious from birth that they will provide very little if any benefit to their breed as a whole. That's not even mentioning all of the extra feed costs (especially now with inflation being so bad) for feeding all of those extra rabbits.

Some breeds have very specific markings - like the rabbit in my pfp, for example. These markings are often able to be determined if they are mismarked or not from a very early age. Those mismarkings need to be culled for. In order to avoid the extra costs associated with having extra cage space you don't actually need just to grow out a bunch of kits that you already know won't cut it as breeders, the only other option is to sell those kits after weaning. No breeder is going to want them, so what are you going to do? You'll sell them as pets. CONGRATULATIONS - You've just contributed to the problem of rabbits in shelters, feral rabbits, rabbits suffering in pet homes that can't take care of them. Imagine even just two kits from every litter being mismarked and needing to be culled - if you've got four does and 8 litters, that's 16 young rabbits that will need to find homes in just one year.

And so, in order to avoid those things, a good breeder who knows what space constraints they have, knows what financial constraints they have, and doesn't want to contribute to the problems that ARAs constantly say we contribute to, may very well choose to cull kits in the nestbox that they know won't make it as potential show or breeding stock.

Just because a kit is killed so young, that doesn't mean it has to just get tossed aside or that it has no use. Talk to my cat about that - she absolutely loves a good whole prey raw snack. Or talk to any dog. Or any snake. Or large lizard. Maybe go talk to the raptors at a raptor sanctuary, or small carnivorous creatures at the local zoo or wildlife sanctuary.

None of this is even mentioning the benefits nestbox culling has on the doe and the other kits in the litter. Does may often have more kits than they can reasonably care for. Sure, some can be fostered by another doe, but why put the strain on another doe for kits you know won't make the cut anyways? By nestbox culling, it reduces the amount of stress on the doe. It also makes it so the kits that do have a chance at being utilized for breeding get a more ample supply of milk, and therefore all grow to be bigger, stronger, healthier, and overall more robust.

Hi, it's likely me who this person is vaguing about culling for wrong markings.

I want the correctly marked babies to live and thrive. Plenty of harlequin breeders and other marked rabbit breeders I've talked to on the internet and IRL do this for the same reasons. Nestbox culls go to my snakes and dogs. Its comparable to culling pinky/hopper mice for snakes, so if you don't like it then don't support owning snakes or raising feeder mice either.

Others cull for color and for litters over a certain number of kits since rabbits only have eight nipples it can be hard (but of course not impossible) for them to raise more than that.

Not to mention raising them would cost time, labor, and money for animals that are either going into the already inflated pet market and would not benefit breeding programs.

People raising rabbits for meat are Never going to make a profit unless they have a huge, expensive, streamlined set up, and are USDA (or their country's equivalent) certified in order to legally sell to grocery stores and for human consumption. I only use the meat for me, my family and my friends and so do many others. It doesn't make money, in fact it takes away money, but I enjoy it. I like to eat meat Ive raised myself.

Selling for pets is nearly impossible in my area, and outright dangerous sometimes, barn break ins, ARAs stealing/releasing animals and reporting to the humane society.

My friend was stalked from an animal swap to her house and her barn was broken into, resulting in her rabbits being taken away by the humane society because of illegally taken pictures. It's been over a year and shes still struggling with this. Her barn may not have appeared clean to non-farm people, but by farm standards it was fine.