Northamptonshire animal charity helps rescue more than 200 rabbits from being turned into 'pies and hats' at 'horrendous' farm

A Northamptonshire animal rescue charity has helped save more than 200 rabbits from a “horrendous” farm were they were reportedly being sold on as “pies and fur hats”.

Animals in Need Northamptonshire (AIN), based in Irchester, were one of several groups who got the call to rescue around 200 rabbits from a farm in the Nottinghamshire area on Saturday (August 20).

AIN boss Annie Marriott said: "It's the end of something horrendous. It was the most stressful day of my life. I drove there in a van and I was going up the M1 shaking like a leaf, dreading it.

"We went in, started catching and got the job over and done with just before 2pm. We were all absolutely exhausted but elated because we managed to save around 200 rabbits from being made into fur hats and rabbit pies.”

Since February, protesters have been demonstrating at the farm trying to get the farmer to free the hundreds of rabbits on site.

Annie said: "The famer was selling rabbit fur hats, the cheapest one was £600, and they are the ugliest things you ever did see.

"Because of the pressure from the protesters, the farmer decided to stop. Last week he said a rescue group can take all the rabbits."

A total of 86 of the 200 rabbits were taken back to AIN's headquarters despite there being very little space on site. The remaining rabbits were taken to other sanctuaries across the UK.

Annie said: "We have no room to take more rabbits in but we had no choice, we had to get them out of there.

"I'm so relieved these rabbits are all safe but I'm super stressed with the logistics as well as running day to day AIN. Other rescues have really helped and we're super grateful. We're all just pulling together and helping each other."

Annie is now calling on the public to help AIN with donations to get the rabbits neutered, vaccinated, ID chipped and treated for parasites, which costs hundreds of pounds per rabbit.

She said: "Most of them were not in bad health but the conditions they were kept in were not welfare standard.

"To neuter them it's £100 each. We're looking at a hell of a lot of money."

If anyone would like to donate to AIN via PayPal, the details are: [email protected].

The main activist group leading the charge to save the rabbits said it was "the most elated and relieved we have been in a very long time".

A spokesman from the group said: "To see those rabbits being handed over the gates of the farm to freedom means the absolute world to everyone within the animal rights movement. But although they are free, the work doesn't end here.

"We have been working around the clock to create a support system for the sanctuaries that took in these lucky bunnies."

Activists claims there is a loophole in the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 which can be exploited and said this should be reviewed by central Government.

Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International/UK said: “Breeding rabbits for meat and fur not only inflicts suffering on these sensitive animals, but it also exploits a loophole to the UK’s two-decade old ban on fur farming – a cruel practice which the British public is firmly against.

"Repeated opinion polls show that the vast majority of Brits want to see the import and sale of fur banned. We welcome the closure of this facility and hope that these exploited rabbits will soon recover in the care of the shelters which came to their rescue, and be adopted into loving families.”