Rabbit transport and its effects on meat quality

There are few slaughterhouses that have the facilities to slaughter rabbits, and as a result, rabbits may spend considerable amounts of time in transit between farm and place of slaughter. The transport chain is typically two-stage, with producers taking their stock to an intermediary location where the rabbits wait for collection and transport to the slaughterhouse. Rabbits may respond to the conditions of transport in different ways to other meat animals, because they normally re-ingest their own faeces (coprophagia), are especially sensitive to new environments lacking familiar odours, and are transported in crates. They are also sensitive to changes in humidity and temperature. It is not clear if transport has an adverse effect on liveweight or carcass yield other than that arising from the associated food deprivation. Liver glycogenesis has been reported under some conditions of transport, as has slow reduction in the gut fill of rabbits allowed feed before transport. Transport reduces liver weight and increases plasma glucose (to an extent determined by prior access to food and time in transit) and causes elevated pH in the meat, enhancing dark, firm, dry (DFD) characteristics. There is no evidence of transport causing pale, soft, exudative (PSE) rabbit meat.