12/06/2025
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Rabbits are livestock. Not recently. Not because modern breeders decided it. Not because it is convenient.
They have been classified, managed, and raised as livestock for well over 1,400 years.
Humans domesticated rabbits around the 5th century for meat, fur, and utility, and they have held the livestock label across nearly every agricultural culture since. Monks bred them for meat during Lent. Families relied on them during wartime. Entire industries were built on rabbit pelts. They appear in agriculture codes, FFA programs, 4H manuals, USDA classifications, and global farming history.
This is not new. This is not controversial.
What is new is people forgetting.
What makes something livestock is simple. Livestock are animals raised for food, fiber, utility, or agricultural purpose.
If it produces meat, it is livestock.
If it has been traditionally farmed, it is livestock.
If it has been selectively bred for production traits, it is livestock.
If it exists in a Standard of Perfection based on carcass yield and fur quality, it is livestock.
Rabbits check every box twice.
Somewhere along the line, rabbits were scooped up by the pet industry and labeled as too cute to be livestock, as though 1,400 years of agricultural history suddenly do not count because a cartoon bunny exists.
Meanwhile, people bottle feed calves, love them, name them, raise them, and still process them for beef. This is completely normal.
People raise pigs, spoil them, scratch their backs with old brooms, laugh at their personalities, and still fill their freezers.
People hatch chicks and turkeys every spring knowing exactly which ones will stay and which ones will feed their family.
Agriculture is full of animals that are both loved and used.
That is the entire point of ethical farming.
So why are rabbits held to a fantasy standard no other livestock species is required to meet?
Before the inevitable comment arrives asking if we would eat our cat or dog, let us clear that up.
Cats and dogs are not livestock. They have never been categorized, bred, or managed as agricultural animals in modern history. They are companion species. Even livestock guardian dogs, such as Great Pyrenees, Anatolians, and Maremmas, are still working dogs, not livestock. Their job is to protect livestock, not be livestock. Rabbits, on the other hand, have over a thousand years of documented use as meat and fur animals, selectively bred for carcass quality, fur type, growth rate, and production traits long before modern pets existed. Comparing rabbits to cats or dogs is not an argument. It is a false equivalence used by people who do not understand animal classification, agricultural roles, or history.
Here is another uncomfortable truth. Rabbits are one of the most sustainable and ethical livestock species on the planet. They convert feed into protein more efficiently than chickens or pigs. They require less space. They produce manure that benefits the soil. They can feed a family without the carbon footprint of commercial farming. If someone is against responsible rabbit breeding, they are not fighting cruelty. They are arguing against one of the most ethical food sources humanity has ever developed.
There is also the online hypocrisy. It is always interesting when people who buy shrink wrapped meat from a fluorescent lit grocery store feel morally superior to the people who raise, care for, and humanely process their own animals. If someone’s activism begins and ends in the comment section while their dinner comes from a factory they have never seen, they are not advocating for animals. They are simply outsourcing the part that makes them uncomfortable.
Cute animal bias is not ethics either. If someone’s entire stance changes depending on how fluffy the animal is, that is not morality. That is emotion. Agriculture runs on reality, not feelings.
Another truth that rarely gets talked about is this. Ethical breeders prevent more suffering than the average pet home. We cull humanely when needed. We prevent deformities from being passed on. We track genetics, manage lines responsibly, and make informed decisions. The people causing the most suffering are the ones who refuse to learn, refuse to euthanize when it is necessary, and allow accidental litters in backyards without understanding basic animal care.
Rabbits have always been dual purpose. They are companions for some, sustenance for others, and a sustainable homestead animal across thousands of years of human survival. Breeders know this. Farmers know this. Anyone raised in agriculture knows this.
You can love a rabbit and still acknowledge what it is.
You can raise them well, cull humanely when needed, and improve your lines.
You can treat them with respect without pretending they are delicate storybook creatures made of emotion and cartoons.
Rabbits are livestock.
Rabbits can be pets.
Both truths have existed for more than a millennium.
Denying their agricultural purpose does not protect rabbits. It only shows how far some people have drifted from the reality that fed every generation before them.
