Cuniculture is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising domestic rabbits as livestock for their meat, fur, or wool. Cuniculture is also employed by rabbit fanciers and hobbyists in the development and betterment of rabbit breeds and the exhibition of those efforts. Scientists practice cuniculture in the use and management of rabbits as model organisms in research. Cuniculture has been practiced all over the world since at least the 5th century.
Maciej, King of Kings by Antoni Kozakiewicz (1841–1929) from Book VI of Pan Tadeusz
Illustration of cuts of rabbit meat by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1657)
A wagon-load of rabbit skins in Walcha, New South Wales, Australia (1905)
Meat-type rabbits were raised for supplementary food in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The domestic rabbit is the domesticated form of the European rabbit, a member of the lagomorph order. A male rabbit is known as a buck, a female is a doe, and a young rabbit is a kit. There are hundreds of rabbit breeds, originating from all over the world.
Domestic rabbit
A pet rabbit stretched out on the carpet. This behavior is sometimes called a "sploot".
A medieval depiction of well-dressed ladies who are hunting rabbits in a warren, using cages, clubs and ferrets. Queen Mary's Psalter (1340)
Titian, Madonna of the Rabbit (c. 1530)
