Characterization of movement in reproducing does kept in a part-time group housing system with different group size and grouping time
Submitted: 2025-06-29
|Accepted: 2025-10-29
|Published: 2025-12-29
Copyright (c) 2025 Fabrizio Pirrone, Gerolamo Xiccato, Marco Birolo, Angela Trocino
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
rabbits, hops, collective housing systems, aggression, welfare, parks
Supporting agencies:
European Union - Next Generation EU (PRIN 2022 “RABBINOUT”; CUP: C53D23005340006)
European Union’s Horizon Europe Project 101136346 EUPAHW
Abstract:
The present study characterized movement restriction in reproducing does kept in a part-time collective system in parks with different group size (2 or 4 does, i.e., 2 or 4 modules joined to have 100-cm and 200-cm long parks), grouping time (12, 15 or 18 d after kindling) and observation day (at grouping time and after 3 d). For this purpose, the number of different types of hops was considered, i.e. number of single hops and series of consecutive double, triple and multiple hops. On average, single hops accounted for 53.64% of all hops observed; double hops were 28.39% and triple hops averaged 12.56%, whereas multiple hops (>3) accounted for 5.41%. When group size increased from 2 to 4 does, the occurrence of multiple hops increased (3.84 to 6.99% of total hops; P<0.001). The number of hops (whatever type) significantly decreased when grouping time increased (from 10.18 to 8.12 and 6.92 per time interval per doe with grouping at 12, 15 and 18 d post-partum, respectively; P<0.001) and when comparing the grouping day with 3 d after grouping (9.72 vs. 7.09 hops; P<0.001). In conclusion, movement restriction, defined as the inability to perform three consecutive hops, does not occur when the enclosure has a minimum length of 100 cm. Nevertheless, the increase of the park length is associated with an increase in the number of hops (all types), including multiple hops.
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