Continually growing spurs - help please

Hi i am new to this forum and am desperate for some advice. i have a rabbit who is 2 next month and his back teeth have started to grow spurs. He eats all the right things and has a lovely life as a house rabbit but his teeth are slightly misaligned and are now causing problems. In the last 10 weeks he has been under anaesthetic 3 times, his teeth have been ground down but they are growing back really fast. His teeth were ground 3 weeks ago and they are back already. The vet has adviced the best option is to put my little bunny down, which obvioulsy i am devastated about. I want to keep paying to have his teeth ground down but there is obviously only so much anaesthetic that a rabbit can take. I could find a vet that will take his teeth out but this is an horendous operation which has a number of risks attached to it not to mention very expensive. Does anyone have any other options, or does anyone know if putting my rabbit under anaesthetic so often is really harmful and the only option is to put him down - please please please dont let the only option be that :O(

What area do you live in? There are some vets in the country that do the dentals while the bun is awake which makes it much more managable if the teeth will need doing as often as yours will. It is also a lot less money.

Ditto what Lucy said...please try to find out if there's a vet near you who does dentals without GA.

Don't have his molars taken out, this could break his jaw bone and could easily kill him.

If you can't find a suitable vet in your area, he could come to me rather than be put to sleep. I have a rabbit who needs her molar teeth doing every 2 weeks, and my vet does it conscious.

I will PM you.

Amy

Agree with the others

Although I have had molars taken out of a rabbit (Zippy), her teeth were particulary bad and not all the roots were out and I do get the odd one come through. Like you My Zippy has had a lot of GA's for her teeth over the last three years and can say she is fine for them.

i think its fine when you say he is on the corrrect diet.. i assume you mean he has a high fibre pellet diet/.... around 16-22%fibre and has 85% of diet as hay which is long asd stalky?(jsut checking as there are some misunderstanding sby some people as to bunny diet with there being so many mixes around)

secondly make sure he has lots of sticks to gnaw to keep teeth down as much as possible. rabbits with dental probs do not need to be put down many vets will do a rabbit dental without a ga and others will do several over the years with ga too. taking out molars is a bad thing unless desperate should be avoided as the jaw can be broken, though inscisors is a different matter i think. hopefully you will find a good vet in your area(many people on ehre have vets that do it without ga) who can do it for you its also cheaper without ga too! x

Hi thank you all for your replies. I live in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and take Harvey to Pearl Vet Hospital. They seem really nice and are not too badly priced compared to some vets. I was horrified though when the vet suggested putting him down. i did think perhaps he could have dental treatment without GA although he is a very nervous rabbit and also can be fiesty which may be why they give him GA. i am not sure if they would struggle to grind his teeth down if he was awake. It seems that GA hasnt harmed your rabbits yet. Do you know if vets can give a sedative or something to make the rabbit quiet but not knock him out? dont know if this has worked but this is Harvey

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oops that came out a bit big, just learning to load

Vets can give rabbits a bit of gas rather than a full GA, just to knock them out for a few seconds.

If it's done conscious, then the vet uses a gag to hold the mouth open. This shouldn't be a problem unless he is extremely timid and nervous. My bun who has dentals every fortnight is fairly easily stressed, but she's got used to having her teeth done and doesn't even struggle now.

i don't think a GA every 3 weeks or so is a very good idea in the long term, but is worth doing temporarily until you can find an alternative vet.

Perhaps do a new thread to ask about vets in Shrewsbury?

The rabbits calm a lot when turned over onto their back. I'm not sure who does it that is local to you. I would also suggest a thread asking for a vet near to Shrewsbury that does concious dentals to see if anyone can advise. The only ones I know of here are Wolverhampton and Coventry.

Hi, :wave:

I live in Market Drayton, not too far away from Shrewsbury. Sorry to hear Harvey has started to have spur problems.

Am just wondering if Harvey is actually having the crowns burred down in addition to having the spurs removed or is just having the spurs burred off. Also assuming you mean they are burring as opposed to clipping?

If I had the choice again and could get away with the option of just having the spurs clipped off as opposed to any burring, I would go for the clipping option if possible. This is after comparing the reaction I had from two bunnies I put through 3 half years of burring compared to the one I simply put through clipping ( for removal of spurs on the back teeth )

If this is a new problem with spurs and all that is needed is removing them and maybe a little filing, I can recommend a vet in Madeley, Telford that I used to use. He does do the dental conscious and was actually very good with what he did, my rabbit ate a lot better afterwards and the intervals inbetween dentals were a lot longer than my two that went through burring.

If you want me to pm you any more details please let me know, I also know of one other vet that may be of help to you but is further away than the above mentioned. Sorry, I don't know know of any actually in Shrewsbury.

All the best with Harvey,


Sue

Hi,

I have been through the same situation. Oliver went through a 6 month period where his teeth had to be deburred every month. He had a GA each time.

One locum vet did recommend I put him to sleep (which made me mad has I had no intention of ever doing this). My usual vet hoped that his teeth would calm down and over time they have. He now has a GA about every 3 months. Until recently he recovered quite quickly from each but at the moment he is not doing to well, but that could be down to other things.

I hope that helps.

All the best with Harvey.

One have mine has monthly conscious dentals. My vet may be a bit far from you though (by Vauxhalls in Ellesmere Port) - PM me if you do want details.

PTS should not be necessary if you find a good vet who will do the consious dentals. Mine had his last night, was only in there for 10 mins at the most and came out and started eating as soon as we got home.

My bun was like that. Because that's because he is an abandon rabbit in downtown w/ no hay to eat.

If you guild your bun to eat 90% hay, in which their diet should be min. of 80% timothy hay. Their teeth won't grow back. In your case, I would go w/ 90% hay. So just a little bit of pellet and hay.

As to encouraging a bun to eat hay, my set up in the house is that in ALL the spots that they like to sit down and stay there, I put a big bunch of hay there. So in this house, I have 5 of their usual spots for hay. And it works great. Lots of big bunny poos.