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Concept
Cuniculture
Summary
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.
An abundance of ancient rabbits may have played a part in the naming of Spain. Phoenician sailors visiting its coast around the 12th century BC mistook the European rabbit for the familiar rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) of their homeland. They named their discovery i-shepan-ham, meaning 'land [or island] of hyraxes'. A theory exists (though it is somewhat controversial) that a corruption of this name used by the Romans became Hispania, the Latin name for the Iberian Peninsula.
Domestication of the European rabbit rose slowly from a combination of game-keeping and animal husbandry. Among the numerous foodstuffs imported by sea to Rome during her domination of the Mediterranean were shipments of rabbits from Spain. Romans also imported ferrets for rabbit hunting, and the Romans then distributed rabbits and the habit of rabbit keeping to the rest of Italy, to France, and then across the Roman Empire, including the British Isles. Rabbits were kept in both walled areas as well as more extensively in game-preserves. In the British Isles, these preserves were known as warrens or garths, and rabbits were known as coneys, to differentiate them from the similar hares. The term warren was also used as a name for the location where hares, partridges and pheasants were kept, under the watch of a game keeper called a warrener. In order to confine and protect the rabbits, a wall or thick hedge might be constructed around the warren, or a warren might be established on an island. A warrener was responsible for controlling poachers and other predators and would collect the rabbits with snares, nets, hounds (such as greyhounds), or by hunting with ferrets.
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