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I also have a colony of rabbits, omg that life is so much happier for them vs cages off the ground imo. I just wanted to thank you for telling me about this, I’m still new new to rabbits, I’ve only had them for about 10 months now.Thanks for the heads up, @Reiki Rooster. I’m near Savannah now so this is very relevant to me.
I’d like to share my experiences with Rabbit Hemorhagic Disease from last year. There was an outbreak out west and the advice was to implement strict biosecurity for your rabbit barns, as RHDV2 could be passed easily, even by flies. Well, my rabbits were in a closed colony on the ground and I would not put them in cages or a barn because of ethical considerations. My rabbits did catch RHDV2 (from a stray cat, probably) and I lost 7 out of 12. I was the only reported domestic case in the state of Wyoming at the time. Did I do the right thing? I don’t know. My rabbits led the best lives that I could provide and I didn’t let them suffer if they got sick. I believe they would have mentally suffered if I put them indoors in cages, completely opposite of how they had been raised.
I feel the same about the poultry. The regulations I’ve seen in the UK seem reasonable and I am willing to restrict my birds to a run if necessary, but I won’t go further than that. I’d rather have no poultry than keep them indoors all the time.
The only change I would advise for anyone near the outbreak area is to think about culling early if you have any meat chickens. It is a really bummer to be waiting for an animal to reach “just the right size” and have a disease kill them instead. Then you have heartbreak on top of empty freezer space.