INTRODUCTION TO RABBIT
Priyanshu Agrawat, Oshwin Abhijit Patil & Brijesh Nanda
Rabbits are delicate, affectionate, amazing creatures that appeals to finer sensibilities of human beings. They are small mammals of family Leporidae of order Logomorpha. There are 305 breeds of domestic rabbits in the world.
There are some advantages to rabbit farming such as docile in temperament and faithful companions, rabbits are mostly utilized for meat, wool, fur and toys, rabbit’s meat is tasty, nutritious and easily digestible, rabbit’s wool is 6-8 times warmer than the contemporary sheep wool, hence it can be mixed with silk, polyester wool, and sheep wool, in Himachal Pradesh, Angora Rabbits are specially reared for costly Angora fibre.
Rabbit can be used as farm animal they got some advantages such as residual feed together with Rabbit manure is highly suitable for ‘Vermicompost’ which in turn provides excellent manure for fertilizing the fields, they have a potential of being in constant state of reproduction, in which they can be bred within 24 hours of kindling, utilizing postpartum heat, rabbits consume a large amount of forages from diverse origin so they can be reared on small amounts of costly concentrates.
With advantageous there are some disadvantageous such as high maintenance, constant chewing habit, fragile health.
Rabbits can be used as experimental models there are some reasons to use them as experiment models such as rabbits are easy to handle and observe, smaller in size, and they require minimum space and less feed. So, the cost of production and maintenance is low, they are prolific breeders and relatively have a huge body size than rat, mice, guinea pigs, so are mainly used in therapeutic trials, raising hyperimmune sera & pyrogen in infusion field, allow transplantation or transmission of tumors and there is a large amount of basic information available.
With advantageous there are some disadvantageous such as they have a standardized diet, when being studied, illnesses are artificially induced in most experiments.
In current research they are used in, to produce serum antibodies, as models for diseases or biological systems, as sentinels or test animals for products, as biological models for cancer: Vx-2 tumor, Spontaneous endometrical adenocarcinoma, monoclonal gammopathies, nephroblastoma, malignant fibroma etc., systemic diseases studied in rabbits are in following areas: Cardiovascular disease, Acute respiratory distress syndrome, Diabetes mellitus, Methylmercury poisoning, Infectious diseases most studied using rabbits are: Chagas disease, Cryptococcal meningitis, Herpes simplex encephalitis etc.
For experiments purpose rabbits are used at ‘University of Utah’, a rabbit suffocated to death while under anesthesia after workers neglected to open a valve to permit the animal to breathe. University of Utah has a long history of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Conclusion:-
Rabbits are small, docile and faithful companions. They are used as as farm animal, and reared for meat, wool and pelt. They can be good pets although having high maintainence and fragile health.
Rabbits being prolific breeders and easy to handle can be used as research or experimental models for cancers, systemic diseases and infectious diseases. Hence, they can be used as Pet and Experimental model.
Authors:
Priyanshu Agrawat1, Oshwin Abhijit Patil2 & Brijesh Nanda3
- Ist Year B.V.Sc. & A.H. Scholar, Apollo College of Veterinary Medicine, Jaipur
- Ist Year B.V.Sc. & A.H. Scholar, Apollo College of Veterinary Medicine, Jaipur
- Assistant Professor, Department of LPM, Apollo College of Veterinary Medicine, Jaipur
