THAT HUNGRY RABBIT!

Southland Times, Issue 18837, 2 June 1920, Page 2

THAT HUNGRY RABBIT!

To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of last Saturday week you deal in an editoritfi with the ' nibbit and his ways and the dnvtic methods likely to be used by the new r Minister of Agriculture. In the course of your article you fjuote someone or other as making the statement “that four rabbits would eat as much as a sheep.” Now, you do not say what series of experiments this individual carried out to justify his conclusion, but I am afraid he gathered his information by listening to the tale of some forgetful boy who kept a pet rabbit and who attributed the absence of any food in its box to it£.

voracious appetite instead of to bis owa neglect to feed it for three days! Just let us calculate a little—The carcase of a rabbit weighs 21b; that of a sheep 601b. The food eaten by 4 rabbits produces 81b of flesh ; the same amount of food eaten by one sheep produces 60 of flesh etc. Therefore it takes 71 times as much food to make one pound of rabbit as it does to make one pound of sheep. How then is this handicapped rabbit going to face the struggle for existence? If both are equally energetic and start to eat at 6 o’clock in the morning the sheep will be able to knock off at 10 o’clock in the forenoon but the rabbit will have to keep on solid until 12 o’clock next day to collect his quota. At the end of a week he would be nearly two days behind with his eating, while his sleeping and other social duties would be hopelessly in arrears. Just think of it I How is this diabetic, dyspeptic, tape-wormed, monstrosity to compete with economically organised animals like the sheep? Talk about “the survival of the fittest? Why the sheep would starve him out of house and home at the very first contest, and so would any other member of the graminivorous family . The only way to perpetuate the existence of such animals would be an island to themselves, with a drastic check on the birth-rate. So, Mr Editor, when you next write on the rabbit question, and you will have several occasions to do so this winter judging by the trend of events, you might assume the formula “50 rabbits equal 1 sheep” in food consumption and stick to that until some evidence can be brought against it. I think it would make a very good test question to put to candidates for the Waste Lands Board. —I am, etc., FACTS. Ryal Bush, May 31.