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Experts and MPs claim pet rabbits are being treated as 'second-class animals' and need better legal protection.
The all-party parliamentary group for animal welfare says Britain's one million domestic rabbits are routinely given the wrong food – and that includes carrots – and suffer depression at being confined alone in often unsuitable hutches.
It has drafted a new code of conduct calling for rabbits to receive similar protections to dogs, cats and horses.
Experts and MPs claim pet rabbits are being treated as 'second-class animals' and need better legal protection. The all-party parliamentary group for animal welfare says Britain's one million domestic rabbits are routinely given the wrong food – and that includes carrots – and suffer depression at being confined alone in often unsuitable hutches
Dr Richard Saunders, a vet with the Rabbit Welfare Association who helped to draw up the guidance, said: 'Rabbit welfare lags behind other pets because there are fewer of them – one million compared to ten million each of dogs and cats – so they are out of sight, out of mind.
'Many older people will remember rabbits being kept alone in a hutch in the garden and fed vegetable scraps for food, but when you look at
