The cost of premature death in young rabbits

The costs of death in a model 100-doe commerical rabbit unit were calculated on the basis of two levels of breeding (7.5 and 10.0 litters per doe per year) and two levels of feeding, (ad lib and controlled). Although the cost of individual deaths from stillbirth and other perinatal and neonatal deaths was half or two-thirds the cost of an individual death later in the rabbit's life, the total cost of these early deaths was three times the total cost of the later deaths. Early death thus plays a major part in the profitability of a commercial rabbitry.