Female rabbits reach mating age after three months. When rabbit populations are reduced, predator. Only 15% of the babies will survive the first year, accounting for a high reproductive rate. Cottontail rabbits are an important food source for many predators, including coyotes, foxes, and owls. The babies will be completely self sufficient after four to five weeks. They weigh around one ounce and measure four inches at birth. The young are called kits or kittens and are born naked, blind, and completely helpless. They can breed up to three to four times a year with three to eight young in a litter. The rabbit’s long ears, which can be more than 4 in long, are probably an adaptation for detecting predators. Cottontails mate from February to September and have shallow ground nests lined with grass and fur. Their predators include hawks, owls, coyotes, wolves, skunks, and bobcats. Its diet includes grasses, fruits, and vegetables in the spring and summer, and twigs, bark, dogwoods, and maple trees in the winter. Rabbits in intensive farming systems experience very bad welfare.įind out more about the welfare of farmed rabbits.The eastern cottontail can be found in meadows, and shrubby areas in the eastern and south-central United States. Nearly all rabbits farmed for meat and fur are kept in small, barren cages where their natural behaviour is severely restricted. Rabbits are the second most farmed species in the European Union with an estimated 330 million rabbits slaughtered for meat ever year the majority of which are produced in Italy, Spain and France (FAOSTAT, 2014). make New England cottontails more vulnerable to predators because the rabbits must. Over one billion rabbits are slaughtered annually for meat worldwide around 50% of these are produced in China. Efforts to conserve Connecticuts only native rabbit, the New England. She only enters the nest for a few minutes once a day to feed the kits, and seals up the nest entrance afterwards to keep them safe. After the kits (young rabbits) are born she leaves them alone for most of the time. Before giving birth a doe will build a nest, lining it with her own fur, in an isolated part of the warren. Mutual grooming is important to reinforce social bonds.įemale rabbits (‘does’) tend to reproduce when the climate is favourable. A warren contains different areas which are used for specific activities such as sleeping and nesting. The family will share their home range and live in a network of burrows, called a ‘warren’, which they will defend against predators and other rabbits. Rabbits are highly social animals and live in family groups of 2-9 females, 1-3 males and their offspring. When chased by a predator, their long, powerful hind legs allow them to run very fast. They have an excellent sense of smell and peripheral vision and are very good diggers. While above ground, rabbits will frequently check for predators by sitting up on their back legs or against objects with their ears pricked to listen for potential danger this is part of their natural behaviour. They are herbivores and eat a variety of plants including grass. Rabbits are prey animals and to avoid predators they mainly feed at dusk and dawn. Domestic rabbits behave very similarly to wild rabbits. Wild rabbits live in varying habitats including forests, woodland, meadows, savannah deserts and wetland and are found in several parts of the world. The ancestor of both farmed and pet rabbits is the wild European rabbit we still see today. Rabbits have been domesticated fairly recently, compared to other domesticated animals.
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