Cuniculture

Cuniculture is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising domestic rabbits, usually for their meat, fur, or wool. This differs from the simpler practice of keeping a single or small group of rabbits as companions, without selective breeding, reproduction, or the care of young animals. Some people, called rabbit fanciers, practice cuniculture predominantly for exhibition. The distribution of rabbit farming varies around the globe, and while it is on the decline in some nations, in others it is expanding.

Phoenician sailors visiting the coast of Spain c. 12th century BC, mistaking the European rabbit for a species from their homeland (the rock hyrax Procavia capensis), gave it the name i-shepan-ham (land or island of hyraxes). A theory exists that a corruption of this name, used by the Romans, became the Latin name for Spain, Hispania – although this theory is somewhat controversial.

Domestication of the European rabbit rose slowly from a combination of game-keeping and animal husbandry. Among the numerous foodstuffs imported by sea to Rome during her domination of the Mediterranean were shipments of rabbits from Spain. Romans also imported ferrets for rabbit hunting, and the Romans then distributed rabbits and the habit of rabbit keeping to the rest of Italy, to France, and then across the Roman Empire, including the British Isles. Rabbits were kept in both walled areas as well as more extensively in game-preserves. In the British Isles, these preserves were known as warrens or garths, and rabbits were known as coneys, to differentiate them from the similar hares (a separate species). The term warren was also used as a name for the location where hares, partridges and pheasants were kept, under the watch of a game keeper called a warrener. In order to confine and protect the rabbits, a wall or thick hedge might be constructed around the warren, or a warren might be established on an island. (see: Rabbit islands) A warrener was responsible for controlling poachers and other predators and would collect the rabbits with snares, nets, hounds (such as greyhounds), or by hunting with ferrets. With the rise of falconry, hawks and falcons were also used to collect rabbits and hares.

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