Talk:Domestic rabbit

Added Citations

I added three sources regarding the Draize test and claims of cruelty under the laboratory rabbits section of the article. That said, it's my first time adding a reference, so it would be greatly appreciated if anyone would be willing to make sure the format is correct. Cheers! --Pacack (talk) 07:47, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

missing subjects

The article says a lot about the diseases but close to nothing about weight, height, length, and litter size, More needs to be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1001950cats$ (talk • contribs) 19:02, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Housing

The housing section is a bit strange. It's very pro-hutches but the source actually only lists reasons not to house them in a hutch. Also, it's 2022. Can we not admit at this point that rabbit hutches are clearly not designed with rabbit welfare in mind? That they're a mistake of human culture, and don't take the slightest bit of rabbit biology into account, hence why hutch rabbits have crazy short lives? Even wild European rabbits don't live outdoors ffs. 2601:600:9C00:2C00:4434:9340:EB36:3518 (talk) 08:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

"Bnuuy" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Bnuuy and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 1#Bnuuy until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Rabbit Spaying and Neutering section

There was a long and unsourced rambling recommending users NOT to spay a female rabbit, along with a note at the bottom explaining why OP didn't agree with a scientific study that claims unspayed female rabbits get ovarian cancer at a higher rate. To their credit, that part was sourced but layman interpretation of a published scientific article does not belong here.

If anybody can find a few primary sources that recommend NOT to spay (preferably a vet or an actual professional source!), then we can keep it up. But I really don't think anybody is going to find that. 142.136.2.21 (talk) 18:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Instead of just deleting entire passages, maybe you should first try to find a source for what is stated or insert a “citation needed”, especially if you are unfamiliar with the topic. I may be wrong, but based on what you’ve deleted, I have to assume that you have no experience with rabbit behavior, since all of the behavioral problems described in that paragraph are common knowledge among experienced rabbit owners. I’ve therefore undone your revision and added some new sources.

The note at the bottom, however, is neither subjective nor a layman interpretation, but only a summary of Greene’s publications and their key problems. If you actually read those papers, you will find that everything stated in that note is indeed correct. That Greene, despite having no validity over the total house rabbit population, is usually cited as the original source of claims about an extremely high incidence of uterine cancer in female rabbits, is something you will only notice after reading loads of publications and by following up citations. Many of those turn out to be citations of citations, which one way or another almost exclusively lead back to Greene. I haven’t yet encountered one single publication with a sample representative of the total house rabbit population that did not somehow relate to Greene or contained other shortcomings, but if you know a viable one, please feel free to send me a link. SapereAudete (talk) 13:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree either with a blanket "do not spay females" ideology that the current section reads. I also absolutely do not agree with your aggression towards the concerned poster. 99.9% of House Rabbit societies and veterinarians recommend spaying females. You can list the dangers of spaying while also not making claims that the majority of rabbit specialized experts disagree with.This section needs to be heavily revamped so it falls in line with Wikipedia's [Fringe Theory Policy] . 96.40.211.103 (talk) 19:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I’m not aggressive in any way and I don’t agree with any ideology, but only with science. What societies, veterinarians, or researchers recommend has no merit if there is no reliable scientific study to back it up. By the way, in some countries, e. g. Germany, prophylactic castration just because an animal might develop whatever sickness later in life is outright illegal. In case you’ve planned on reworking the paragraph, you should be aware that only scientific papers will be accepted as proof for a claim and only if the methods applied in those studies actually allow for the drawn conclusions. The webpage of whatever society or veterinarian cannot be accepted as proof if its content is not based on scientific evidence. If you manage to find a reliable and representative study, which proves that benefits of spaying will outweigh negative health outcomes, feel free to add a section about it. SapereAudete (talk) 00:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

your being called out because your saying stuff thats very suspicious like saying spaying is not advisable and then saying the concerned people don't know about rabbit behavior? I cant find any sources either that advice not to spay (not talking about the dangers, talking about the recommendation not to spay). I took out that section and added a POV tag. Its not neutral. Somebody else needs to get a fresh set of eyes on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100A:B123:BCF5:0:52:19CF:F01 (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Needs more (or any source) sources stating why male neutering is necessary and female spaying is not for companion rabbits if this section is going to stay as-is, especially because problematic behaviors (litter box issues, aggression, etc) is present in both sexes and is corrected by spaying and neutering. Also since having multiple rabbits is a common case, you cannot have a bonded pair of rabbits if one of them still has sex hormones. It would be a false bond at best if it worked at all. 96.40.211.103 (talk) 14:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Please tell me, how can spaying females even be advisable, when there are so many severe negative effects on the rabbit’s health and the one medical reason usually cited for the spaying (nearly inevitable uterine cancer) is scientifically unsubstantiated? If there are so many negative effects, one doesn’t need a source to proof why you shouldn’t spay but one that proves, that the benefits of spaying indeed outweigh all the dangers. Fortunately, I was able to find sources that discourage from spaying females routinely, which I have now added to the section, as well as an article by a veterinarian who states exactly the same as is written in that note.

That rabbits are generally unable to bond if one is left unneutered is baloney. Keeping intact females with castrated males works perfectly fine, if the rabbits are chosen by their characters and not by their owner’s preference. In my opinion, pets should always be chosen by what is best for them and not by what feels best for the owner. Rabbits are usually either docile or dominant in character and form strict hierarchies within their social groups. Females are usually rather dominant in character, which is why female-only groups rarely ever work. Neutering will make most rabbits more docile, but you only need one of two to be docile for a well bonded pair. So, if you had to choose between a small operation with a small incision and basically no negative effects on the rabbit’s health and a huge operation where the entire abdomen has to be opened up with possibly devastating consequences, which one would you choose? SapereAudete (talk) 18:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Scientific name

The article currently claims the scientific name of the species as "Oryctolagus cuniculus domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758)". But I am not aware of the existence of such a name. I looked at Linnaeus's description of "_Lepus Cuniculus_" and it never mentions the word "_domesticus_". As far as I know there is no commonly accepted scientific name for domestic rabbits.

Unless someone presents evidence that this scientific name is in real use, I am going to remove it from the article. That shouldn't affect the existence of this article: it's still useful to discuss domesticated rabbits separately from their wild relatives. Ucucha (talk) 05:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: First Year English Composition 1001

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2023 and 30 November 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bluebunny12233 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Bluebunny12233 (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

The opinions and claims of organizations like RSPCA or HRS are no valid sources for a Wikipedia article, especially not on medical subjects. The information they give may be perfectly correct, however, it still has to be verified through scientific articles. For example, if you want to write that certain bacteria carried by rabbits can infect guinea pigs, you will have to find a reliable scientific article to prove it. You cannot just cite a private webpage. Here you can read more on reliable sources. SapereAudete (talk) 22:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Textbook of Rabbit Medicine

Some of the health information was really sketchy here, I just cleaned up the respiratory and conjunctival section, but anyone can start working on the health related sections of this article now that NLM allows for free access to the Textbook of Rabbit Medicine. Reconrabbit 23:36, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Split proposal

The peer review pointed out a pretty big issue - that the health section of this page is way too long to be within the scope of just "domestic rabbit". It should be split out into a seperate article in the same way that we have the perfectly fine articles with this level of detail: Cat health, Dog health. Reconrabbit 11:22, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm the peer reviewer. This section is in obvious violation of WP:PROPORTION and WP:UNDO (also, some of it is not specific to domestic rabbits). It's already an article unto itself. I'd encourage @Reconrabbit or anyone else to just create the new article. There is no way this article would make it through the GA process as is, and it would be a real shame to delete (what to this non-expert looks like) good work. Patrick (talk) 15:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I've just done it - something unusual is that when trying to publish Rabbit health, I was given the error that the text contained a "deprecated source", but I wasn't able to figure out which of the references was a bad one. Any ideas would be welcome (and the article itself is still missing a lot of information - currently it's just a mixed bag of the various health problems rabbits have that is in no way comprehensive). Reconrabbit 15:17, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

There is probably a script to detect that, but I'm not sure. Maybe check in at the Help Desk if you're also interested in developing that article. Patrick (talk) 15:26, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Domestic rabbit/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Reconrabbit (talk · contribs) 12:38, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments

Lead

• Don't think we need a redlink to shows in the lead.

  Just recently TanRabbitry and I were working on a draft of a page on rabbit shows. I'll remove the link until the page is ready for mainspace.

History

• Not convinced we need the "controversial" Hispania theory, suggest we just drop it as spurious.

  The theory is exceptionally old, as is its source - I've removed it.

• Please remove the inter-language link.

  Done.

Terminology

• The key thing missing is the etymology of "Rabbit". Suggest the chapter moves to top above 'History', and is renamed 'Etymology and naming'. It would be helpful to provide etymologies for all the terms described.

  This section looks to be word-for-word copied from Rabbit. I can use the same info if it's reasonable to do so (with attribution). Would be nice to use the OED for this etymology but I can't get through the paywall.

Experimentation

• The section seems misplaced as it's very different from the History. Suggest we put it at the end, as it's a human use of rabbits. Suggest that you make 'Human uses' a chapter heading and group 'Pets', 'Livestock', 'Science', and 'Cosmetics testing' as separate subsections of it (i.e. split the current 'Experimentation').

  Done.

Diet

• The 'Diet' subsection is basically not biology but animal husbandry, all that detail about food pellets and muesli-style foods, so it needs to come out of that chapter. It'll work better next to 'Care' in the 'As pets' chapter.

• The text seems somehow hypertrophied, overfed to coin a phrase. "It is recommended..." comes very close to WP:NOTHOWTO, and the second paragraph is excessively long. Suggest we cut it down. It's not Wikipedia's job to describe quantities or to recommend anything, indeed we shouldn't ever do that. Phrasing like "Additionally, numerous studies have found..." is just fluff. Really, the section needs to be completelyl rewritten to be terse and factual.

  This section has been trimmed significantly to reflect the sources in what is described as typical for the domestic rabbit on a whole. The short piece specific to pet rabbits has been excised and moved to 'Care'; I don't believe there is enough there to warrant a subsection on the diet of pet rabbits compared to the whole of domestic rabbits. There could still be some information under Diet that I can supplement with the Rabbit Production source if necessary.

Digestion

• Suggest you remove this as it's covered at Rabbit and doesn't seem to have any special implications over here.

  Done.

Reproduction

• The paragraph on milk is mainly or wholly off-topic, as is the comparison table, again a matter for Rabbit not this article. Suggest you remove those items.

  Done.

As pets

• Why is Some people consider rabbits a pocket pet even though they are rather large. encyclopedic? Also uncited, best we chuck it. Actually, the whole section is verbose, rambling, partially cited, and not terribly useful. It needs rewriting at a quarter of its length, or less. Ask yourself what you are trying to say; focus on the key points; state them directly; and stop.

  The section is much shorter than it was before and much has been cut out that was uninformative, repetitive or not straightforward.

House rabbits

• Rabbits as house companions ... fire had gone out. is 'History' and should be moved there; actually, probably the whole paragraph. Suggest you add one of Beatrix Potter's PD images of her own (real) domestic rabbits (not a Peter Rabbit image) alongside the text, with date.

  Moved; will search for those images.

  I did find one photo of Beatrix with one of her rabbits, though I don't know where best to put it considering the way the other images are formatted. I have placed it to the left for now. commons:File:Beatrix and Peter Rabbit photo.jpg

• All areas should be "rabbit-proofed"... seems like advice, which we must not offer.

  This has been sourced back to the HRS as it is an important factor in the use of domestic rabbits, which must chew on things as a normal behavior in order to prevent detrimental health issues.

• rabbits are alert, timid creatures that startle fairly easily seems sentimental. The whole paragraph seems redundant, actually. Really, I think you should read through the entire section, pick out any parts that actually say anything useful, and then redraft the section to be a great deal shorter. Wikipedia wants a terse, encyclopedic summary of the "main points", not an extensive disquisition on fluffiness relative to guinea pigs. So, let's start over.

  I've done what I can to trim it to the pertinent information.

Bonding

• A weak section; there's very little science here, and the text is far too long for what little it does say. For instance, However, not all bonding attempts result in success, and sometimes bonds may break due to various factors, would be struck out in red ink by any teacher marking a school exercise book as uninformative waffle. It is also far too close to WP:NOTHOWTO. Please compress it to 2 or 3 short sentences.

  The how-to information has been removed but the section still has some meat to it. Forgive me if I am missing something here, but I have kept a lot of the writing as it describes a fairly important facet of domestic rabbit ownership and behavior.

• The last paragraph is half-uncited and wholly off-topic, please cut it.

  The compatibility of the domestic rabbit with other domestic pets is a common concern, as well as its temperament and compatibility with children. The pertinent information has been trimmed.

See also

• The portal link adds no new information for readers; the (many) properly contextualized links in the article are far more helpful and provide instant navigation. Let's get rid of it; it's also wrecking the reference column format, by the way.

  Done. Also trimmed some of the ELs. Everything in the See also section was already presented in the article as further reading or main articles of certain sections.

• Can't really see why we need small pet, dog, cat, bird here.

  See Also section has been removed.

Images

• There should not be extra images in the lead (users can hide the Table of Contents, for one thing); and not sure that talking about "sploot"s is encyclopedic in that caption. Best we drop that image.

  The only image in the lead is now the one in the infobox.

• The hunting rabbit women don't seem to have clubs in that image.

  The caption has been changed.

• I've centred the Titian image so it doesn't run into the next section.

• The meat-bred rabbits image needs to be cited, and to have accompanying text in the article; that should probably be in 'History', in which case please put the image up there too.

  The meat-breed rabbits photo does not seem to have any particular significance to history, only that rabbits have been raised for meat since the 1900s, which warrants its remaining in that location as a representation of commercial meat farming.

• Peaux de Lapin image should be |upright.

  Done.

• Several of the images have absurdly sentimental and unencyclopedic captions: A bonded rabbit pair often can be found snuggling with each other. is perhaps the most egregious, but A Holland Lop hiding in a cardboard box. As a prey species, domestic rabbits often make use of hiding spaces to manage threats and relieve stress.[80] is, I'd venture, sentimentality cloaked as science. Why not just say "A bonded rabbit pair" and "A Holland lop hiding", all the rest of the text is at best clutter, at worst ... something much worse. Even Rabbit kits suckling from their mother - the last 3 words are redundant or sentimental again. And we don't need the "at Polyface farm" either, we don't do commercial placements.

  Comments on the images have been addressed; inappropriate captions have been shortened and/or adjusted to match text.

Sources

• There are multiple uncited statements.

  I have added sources in all places where citation needed tags were added as well as anywhere I added new information. Reconrabbit 20:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• [67] page needed.

  Page numbers have been added for the places where this source (Davis, Susan (2003) "Stories Rabbits Tell") is cited.

Summary

• This article is not wholly ready for GAN. The writing is not as crisp, terse, and encyclopedic as it should be. Several sections are misplaced, requiring the article to be reorganized. Image captions in particular come across as sentimental rather than informative. Quite a bit of text strays dangerously close towards telling the reader how to keep rabbits. There are multiple citation needed tags. An immediate fail is certainly an option here, as the article now needs substantial rework, but my preference is to support articles through the GAN process.

• I think there will have to be a second pass in this review once the comments made so far have been actioned: I hope they will be taken not just as items to fix but as indications that the article quality, all the way through, needs attention. If that attention is given to the text as a whole, then the second pass should be short. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for your attention to detail here. I'll do a second pass on the prose later today in addition to addressing the specific concerns here. Reconrabbit 12:34, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  I've gone through a couple passes and believe I've addressed everything here. The one thing I'm uncertain about is the length of the "As pets" section and what is due or undue for inclusion. Also, I can't get access to Rabbit Production right now, though I am certain that is where the meat rabbit fryer/stewer and skinning information is. I'll get page numbers on that as soon as I can. Cleared that up and cleaned all the Cn tags and the meat rabbits section specifically. Reconrabbit 18:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Would be helpful if you could just indicate very briefly under each item what you've done with it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  I have tried to do that for each item. If the current state still falls short then I will scrap the whole thing and try again some other time as most of the text was written by folks many years ago with different interpretations of what is useful information. Reconrabbit

  OK, much better. I think all we really need now is to get those two citation needed tags sorted out. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:01, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.