Novendéknyulak vàlasztàsa tukros és tukor nélkuli ketrecek kozott.

Five week-old Pannon White rabbits were housed in a closed climatized rabbitry and randomly assigned to pens (56 rabbits) having a basic area of 1 m2 with a stocking density of 16 and 12 rabbits/m2 or to 18 individual cages (0.24 m2; 1 rabbit/cage; stocking density of 4 rabbits/m2). The pens and the cages were divided into 2 parts and animals could move freely among the 2 parts through swing doors. The vertical sides of one part of the pens and cages were completely covered with mirrors while the other part was covered with white plastic panels. A 24 hour video recording was performed twice a week using infrared cameras and the number of rabbits in each pen and cage was counted with a frequency of 15 minutes (96 times a day). The duration of the trial was 6 weeks. The lighting period was 16L/8D. Rabbits were fed ad libitum a standard diet and water was available ad libitum from nipple drinkers. Throughout the entire rearing period 67% of the individually caged rabbits showed a preference for the part of the cage enriched with mirrors (P<0.001). This preference slightly decreased with increasing age. The strong preference toward the part of the cage provided with mirror walls was independent of the time of day. That is, during the active period (11:00 pm – 05:00 am), which corresponds to the dark part of the day, rabbits still preferred the mirror-side even though they were not able to see their own reflected image at that time. Neither rearing rabbits in groups under different stocking densities (12 vs 16 rabbits/m2) nor the presence of conspecifics reduced the interest toward mirrors. 65% of animals living at the stocking density of 16 rabbits/m2 and 61% of those living at the density of 12 rabbits/m2 were found on the side with mirrors (P<0.001) during all the recordings. Group-penned rabbits showed a decisive preference toward mirrors during the active period (71 to 74% for stocking densities of 12 and 16 rabbits/m2, respectively; P<0.001). The results suggest that the mirrors’ presence offers some advantages, perhaps related to comfort and welfare that could be used as environmental enrichments for fattening rabbits. However, the installation costs should be taken into account before considering their use for long time individually caged animals and for grouppenned rabbits.