Rabbit farmer Judith Dungan is thinking about closing down after thieves stole all of her best does stock and their young.The St John small farmer said she was distressed by the theft since she would now have to source another good breed of rabbit from overseas, and it was expensive to import them.Dungan said she found one of her baby rabbits on the road while she was walking her dogs early yesterday morning.“I was wondering how she got out of the pen but it was only when I got back home that I found that the rope used to tie the gate had been cut”, she said.On entering she was shocked to find ten empty pens.“This would have to be someone who knows my set-up and knows where I keep my best stock,” she said.Dungan added that what was most upsetting to her was that when the Ministry of Agriculture stopped rearing rabbits 15 years ago and people were not able to get replacement stocks, she stepped in and decided to go into breeding rabbits.“I sought out a place in England because I wanted to have a decent type of rabbit. I imported a dozen, and from that time almost everybody who keeps rabbits for meat gets their stock from me. I am really sad because my entire breeding stock is gone.”She said while a rabbit was usually sold for $30 she could not put a value on her stock.“Good breeding does are almost priceless. In their lifetime which is four or five years they breed six litters a year and a litter can be five, eight or ten,” she pointed out.Dungan also lamented that several hours after contacting the police no one had arrived.“Farmers are losing so much these days. It is hard enough for a farmer to break even and in a lot of instances it takes years to build up stock. It doesn’t seem that enough is done for farmers when these things happen,” she cried.
