Caged in huge corrugated iron sheds, from the age of 4 weeks and for a period of 8 weeks, rabbits in the meat industry are doomed to spend their entire lives housed in barren, wire mesh (battery cages) raised about a meter above the ground, often stacked two or three layers high. Sometimes the sheds are open-sided, so the caged rabbits are exposed to extreme changes of temperature, light and noise. This is the fate of more than a billion rabbits every year.

The bunnies are packed 6-8 to a cage measuring 2ft x 3ft x 18in high.
In the wild, female rabbits live in a three acres territory and males occupy a territory of eight acres. The small size cages restrict the young rabbits' movement and thus restrain attempts to hop and jump, resulting in poor development of the thigh bone. Caged rabbits lose the ability to hop normally, they crawl instead.

Abnormalities in the shape of the back and the ensuing pressure on the vertebral column may cause further injuries. Farmers refuse to house rabbits in larger cages as this would encourage increased movement, using up more energy, resulting in a longer time taken to reach slaughter weight.
The industry’s math is very simple:
more space = more movement = more energy spent = less weight = less money

270 million rabbits were raised and slaughtered in the rabbit meat industry in 1960. Today the industry is almost 4 times larger than it was 51 years ago and it gets bigger and bigger. The informal numbers of the industry are one billion rabbits per year.

Rabbits suffer from the same hardships every other farm animal suffers from such as: space deprivation, poor ventilation, manipulated lighting, and etc. Consequently they exhibit a range of neurotic behaviors such as fur-plucking, ear-biting and self-mutilation. They become obese, get inflamed feet, have poor bone density, develop gastrointestinal and urinary dysfunction.

Caged rabbits can suffer from ulcerative pododermatitis (also called "sore hocks") consisting of scab-covered ulcers on the hind legs. This is caused by the pressure of heavy body weight on a wire floor, or by excessive stamping of the feet by nervous rabbits.

In some cases the faeces underneath the cages are never cleaned out. Prolonged exposure to fumes (particularly ammonia) from urine and faeces, irritate the rabbits' eyes and respiratory tracts and predisposes them to disease.

In nature, rabbits’ way of dealing with dangers is by running and hiding in holes. The fact they can’t do it in the cages leaves them panicked with every change in the surrounding. When they are taken out of the cage or someone else is getting in or even to the slightest noise, rabbits often respond with digestive problems, in some cases hurting themselves or their babies, sometimes killing them.

Just to understand how hard the conditions in the rabbits farms are, 1 in 4 rabbits will die due to the intensive conditions before the age of 12 weeks (rabbit’s slaughter age) even though they can reach up to 12 years.

In a recent major international rabbit breeding conference, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced that it is ready to promote rabbit farming in its various livestock projects all over the world.
"There is greater and greater recognition that the potential of small species like rabbits, has been underestimated so far", according to Emmanuelle Guerne-Bleich, FAO animal production expert. "Several rabbit farming micro-projects have been launched by FAO in the last years in Tunisia, Morocco, Latvia, Papouasia New Guinea, Barbados, Gambia, Cameroon, Mexico and lately it has enlarged its efforts to include South and Central America as well as the Caribbean.
The United Nations organization was established to promote world peace and humanitarian assistance not animals exploitation.

The industry’s way to reproduce more “meat bunnies” is by caging does and bucks (Female and male rabbits) in a single cell cage and use them as a breeding stock. In the wild, rabbits form social colonies that usually consists of one to three males and one to five females. Domestic rabbits retain the full range of behaviors of their wild ancestors, so housing rabbits singly in barren cages causes physiological and behavioral problems.

The nails of adult rabbits are trimmed to prevent them from stuck in the wire mesh of the cage when they are taken out to mate.

Young does are mated for the first time at the age of 16 weeks. Then they start their endless cycle of overlapping impregnation, gestation, birth, and nursing.
A typical litter consists of 8-10 bunnies which are taken away from their mother at 4 weeks of age.
The does are fertile 24 hours after giving birth and being re-mated before each litter is weaned.
Does have an average 'use-life' of about 18 months. During this period, they will produce 8-15 litters. The gestation lasts for 32 days. An average litter reproduces 6-8 successfully fattened rabbits (out of 8-10 born bunnies). The production targets are at least 50 rabbits per doe, per year. Bucks are usually kept until they are three to four years old.

When the breeding does' and bucks' productivity begins to fall, they are sold for low-quality meat production.

At the age of 12 weeks, weighting about 2kg, the rabbits are slaughtered.

Rabbits may have to endure a journey of hundreds of miles because there are very few specialist, licensed, rabbit slaughterhouses near by. The rabbits are crammed into crates that are stacked in tiers on open vehicles and then transported for long distances.
The other option is not much better. Sometimes the rabbits are slaughtered by the farmers that are much less skilled.

Rabbits that are slaughtered in commercial facilities undergo electrical stunning, which renders them unconscious, and then are decapitated.
In smaller processing facilities or in on-site slaughter, manual stunning methods are used. Two are recommended by the industry. The first one is by twisting their necks to the point of cervical dislocation, however, it is difficult to stun "meat rabbits" effectively this way, because they are too large and elusive to handle easily.
The second method is hitting them on the head with a piece of iron pipe.

After the stunning, the rabbit is hung by one of the hind legs above the hock joint. Then the head is removed to allow complete bleeding.

According to the USDA’s meat inspectors, some rabbits are fully conscious as they have meat hook jabbed through their leg muscles and possibly through the bone.

The rabbit meat industry is another example of the absurd duality of the human race.
Rabbits are considered to be one of the most adorable animals in the world.
You can find rabbit puppets in every toy store, one of the most popular characters among children is bugs bunny and rabbits are, unfortunately, very popular in the “animal corner” at kindergartens and elementary schools.
They buy rabbit meat in the same store they buy slippers - rabbit designed, chocolate in a rabbit shape (especially in Easter holiday) and rabbit puppet for their children.

It doesn’t bother humans while they commercially raise rabbits for meat. Rabbits are means to humans’ ends in every possible way. Pet, cartoon, sweater, stuffed doll, coat or skinless rabbit hind legs.
Cute or not, rabbits have one role in this world, to pleasure humans.