PRISONERS SIR: While we enjoy the long hot summer days, may I remind your readers of the article in the BEN several weeks ago, entitled 'Backyard Prisoners'.

These rabbits, dressed in their fur coats, suffer considerable discomfort in the hot weather. Often kept in small stuffy hutches with no shade and little room to move, they make no protest, but suffer silently. Imagine the sheer monotonous day to day existence of always being confined in a small hutch with no companionship of their own kind and no room to run and play on grass, as rabbits were meant to.

At the very least, give them a few hours freedom by providing an escape proof 'run', preferably on a grassy patch. Surely that's the least they deserve and, if you possibly can, give your rabbit a guinea-pig companion.

All creatures, human or fellow creature, need the contact of others - especially our so called 'pets' in hutches.

Little prisoners and yet they have done no wrong! It is us who wrong them.

Name and Address Supplied.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.