In order to provide the highest possible standards of animal welfare, species-appropriate housing must be provided while meeting the specific goals of the researcher. In addition to meeting regulatory compliance, peer-reviewed literature provides many examples of the physical and psychological benefits of pair housing NZW rabbits. The Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) also mandates that single housing is only appropriate when there is scientific justification that has been evaluated and approved of by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), the animals are incompatible or the veterinary staff has a health or welfare concern 3. The second, the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes 2, states that rabbits are an inherently social species that should be housed in accordant social situations with the exception of qualifying veterinary or research related reasons. The first of these guidance resources, the 8 th edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals 1 (Guide) states that social species such as rabbits should only be singly housed as an exception and single housing should not be the housing standard. Two of the three primary standards used by AAALAC International to evaluate animal care and use programs describe guidelines for species-appropriate husbandry and housing. The regulations governing laboratory animal care provide well-defined recommendations regarding rabbit social housing. Through several years of trialing different pairing methods, the development of the ethogram and the resulting enrichment interventions, understanding of the highly complex social constructs that dominate pair housed rabbit behavior has dramatically increased and allowed for the provision of more species-specific care and increased standards of welfare. With the newfound knowledge of socially housed laboratory NZW rabbit behavior, enrichment intervention was applied to alleviate aggression and prevent wounding, thus resulting in a higher percentage of successful pairs. Behaviors were then quantified as positive, neutral or negative and were tracked across the lifespan of the pair to determine which behaviors indicated pair success or failure.
To determine the best method of housing paired rabbits in a standard caging environment, data were collected to generate a behavioral ethogram. Multiple methods have been tested for the creation of newly paired female rabbits from the vendor, but the most efficacious technique emphasizes capitalizing on the stress bonding from transport, urine marking, pairing in a neutral cage with no forced sharing of resources and a system of monitoring and intervention.
The purpose of this protocol is to present effective procedures for establishing newly paired NZW rabbits as well as methods for successful maintenance. To prevent these issues, there must be a well-structured plan for the monitoring and maintenance of paired laboratory rabbits. Although these rabbits are innately gregarious, certain behaviors can still arise when kept in captivity, which if left unchecked, can confound research results or lead to wounding, which in extreme cases can be severe. New Zealand White (NZW) laboratory rabbits ( Oryctolagus cuniculus), as well as their ancestors the European Rabbit, are a social species that exhibit numerous benefits to being housed accordingly.
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