Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
people usually have purchased rabbit meat at retail grocery stores or at fancier restaurants but
that may be changing as rabbit meat becomes more available at farmers markets and ethnic
grocery stores. Most rabbit growers do not have industry groups or national representatives,
so rabbit production is often hard to gauge and track.
Hobby rabbit breeders raise and sell rabbits for the same reasons as other rabbit growers.
They raise and sell rabbits for showing, home meat consumption, direct pet sales, and fur pro-
duction. The American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA) sponsors 4,000 rabbit shows per
year. An annual, national show, with entries from around the country, can draw as many as
20,000 rabbits and their owners. Show breeders travel to show, spend money on hotels and
restaurants, sell rabbits to other enthusiasts and to pet rabbit owners, breed their rabbits, con-
sume their own meat rabbits, and harvest the wool from long-haired rabbit breeds. Commer-
cial rabbit breeders sometimes keep small rabbit herds for show purposes but, in general, in-
dustry groups advocate maintaining a separation between breeding for fancy show rabbits and
commercial rabbits.
The exact number of rabbits kept in the U.S for various purposes is unknown, according to the
United States Department of Agriculture. They track some rabbit industry populations as they
impact meat inspections and sales, but they estimate that they inspect only about a quarter of
the rabbit meat that is slaughtered in the U.S. The rest is slaughtered for personal consump-
tion. In 2001, the USDA estimated that about 2 million rabbits were slaughtered. They further
estimated that 2.2 million households owned 5 million pet rabbits. There were more than
250,000 rabbits involved in laboratory research. 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America)
programs had one million rabbits involved in their projects. Hobby rabbit breeders, represen-
ted by the ARBA, raised and showed nearly one million rabbits per year. The USDA con-
cluded that the total domestic rabbit population in the U.S. in 2000 was about 9 million rab-
bits.
According to the American Pet Products Association in their 2009/2010 National Pet Owners
Survey, 5.3 million U.S. households owned 15.9 million “small animals.” The survey does not
distinguish among rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, and other small animals, however. The American
Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 1.8 million U.S. households own 6.1 million
pet rabbits, as per their 2007 U.S Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook. Rabbits are
considered an “exotic” animal.
