Rabbit production is significant in several countries, especially France, Italy, Malta, and Spain, where there is a long tradition of consuming rabbit meat. In the past, great numbers of rabbits were raised by subsistence farmers, who fed them locally collected forages such as weeds, grasses, and vegetable by-products. But with the intensification of agriculture, particularly in the twentieth century, and the decline in “peasant farmers,” rabbit production as a cottage industry declined. However, because the tradition of eating rabbit meat endured in western European countries, an intensive, commercial, industrial-scale production of rabbits has developed to meet continuing demand.

Both the origins and the evolution of the domestic rabbit are difficult to trace. Rabbits are in the order Lagomorpha, which dates back about 45 million years in the fossil record to the late Eocene period. Modern lagomorphs (rabbits and hares) belong to two families (Leporidae and Ochotonidae) consisting of 12 genera. They range from the highly successful hares and rabbits of the Lepus, Oryctolagus, and Sylvilagus genera to several endangered genera and species. Although rabbits and hares appear to have originated in Asia, all breeds of domestic rabbits are descendants of the European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and are Mediterranean in origin. There are more than 100 breeds of domestic rabbits, ranging in size from dwarf breeds with an adult weight of less than 1 kilogram (kg) to giant breeds weighing in excess of 10 kg.