Bunnies Replace Chicken on Indian Tables

[Coleman]

India's livestock industry is burrowing into new terrain by embracing rabbit farming in the aftermath of avian flu outbreaks. Farmers say demand for the low cholesterol meat is growing as people steer away from poultry.

The draw? Well, we all know rabbits reproduce prolifically. They also can be raised in relatively small areas (such as backyards) and don't require expensive feed (many are fed kitchen waste). And, unlike birds, farmers raising rabbits can sell the hide in addition to the meat. (At one point in your life you must have had a lucky rabbit's foot, right?) All of these factors point to low-cost investments and good returns. Plus, in India and the Middle East, rabbit meat is a delicacy.

Yet if avian flu were to pervade U.S. poultry (an Arkansas flock recently tested positive for a less virulent strain), I can't imagine Americans requesting rabbit at their local meat counter. Still, rabbit appears to be a good alternative to meat birds. And the way grain prices and transportation costs are headed, we'll need alternatives, the most logical one being to eat less meat.

http://envirovore.com/content/view/171/9/#josc776

 

[Oracle]

Bunny Bad News

Bunny Bad News

Viral.

"Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD) is a rapidly lethal infectious viral disease of the European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) characterized by high mortality rates, acute hepatic necrosis, and disseminated intravascular coagulation.

Within a few months of RHD being reported in China in 1984, the disease was widely seen in many commercial rabbitries and had reached the Republic of Korea. Other endemic locations of RHD include Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, parts of Asia and Africa, and most of Europe. Other locations where RHD have been reported in domesticated rabbits are the Russian Federation, India, the Middle East and North and South America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_haemorrhagic_disease

Protozooan.

"Encephalitozoon cuniculi is an emerging disease in pet rabbits, although the infection has been recognised for some time in farm and laboratory rabbits. More recently human infections with this parasite have been diagnosed.

E.cuniculi is a tiny single celled organism called a protozoon, which has to live inside a host cell to survive (an obligate intracellular parasite). It belongs to the phylum Microspora. These are spore-forming parasites with a wide host distribution. Recent research has indicated that they may be more closely related to fungi than to protozoa (Wasson and Peper, 2000), which means that novel antifungal drugs may be of use in treating this disease. Microsporidia contain a unique internal structure called the polar filament, which plays an important role in infection of the host cell.

E.cuniculi primarily infects rabbits and is a significant cause of disease. It is also important to rabbit owners since it is potentially zoonotic (can spread to humans) and has been associated with infections in immunocompromised people. Infection has been diagnosed in rabbits in Europe, Africa, America and Australia. In the United Kingdom this parasite is frequently encountered in laboratory rabbits (Gannon, 1980), but is thought to be rare in the wild rabbit population (Cox and Ross, 1980). It has been diagnosed in pet rabbits (Harcourt-Brown and Holloway, 2003) and a recent study has shown a 52% incidence of exposure in normal healthy domestic rabbits (Keeble and Shaw, in press). "

http://www.thebrc.org/health.htm