Federal inspectors have cited Envigo RMS LLC’s rabbit breeding facility in Denver, Lancaster County, after a string of equipment failures and enclosure problems that the government links to dozens of animal deaths. The newly disclosed findings describe mass losses of kits and newly weaned rabbits and have animal-welfare advocates demanding regulators move quickly, as per Fox43.
According to Fox43, a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection dated March 17, cited the Denver site for three “critical” violations and tied dozens of rabbit deaths to failures in the water system and housing. Inspectors noted that corrective steps were already in progress at the facility before the visit concluded, so they did not issue on-the-spot enforcement at that time.
Facility Context And Oversight
The Denver operation breeds laboratory rabbits for biomedical research and functions under state environmental permits, including an NPDES wastewater permit that governs how the site discharges water, according to a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fact sheet. As a research-models facility, it is registered with USDA APHIS and has a public inspection history. A USDA report the company posted from August 2024 showed no noncompliant items, a clean bill that highlights how sharply conditions appear to have deteriorated ahead of the most recent findings.
What Inspectors Documented
The federal report, as summarized by Fox43, states that at least 41 rabbits were euthanized for injuries between July 2025 and March 2026. Inspectors detailed a clogged water line that left animals without water for two days and led to the deaths of 13 newly weaned rabbits in October 2025, along with a malfunctioning water regulator that flooded nest boxes overnight and killed 11 kits in February 2025.
The same report describes pre-weaned rabbits getting their legs caught through cage floors, a problem the facility began tracking in July 2025. It also notes four separate drownings between August 2024 and October 2025 after rabbits escaped and fell into a wastewater holding tank…