Huge vet bills for dental bunny. Advice needed!

I am just back from picking up my bun Nutmeg from the vets. He was having his 2nd dental in a month! He is only a year old and had his first dental in October. Sadly i only noticed he was having problems when he went off his food and had a wet chin. He was syringe fed and kept in for nearly a week as he had developed stasis. Vicious circle cant eat, stomach problems. Anyway it was all sorted and he came home a new bun.

Friday he went off his food again and it was Monday before he went to vets. He had his dental same day as he was still bright and is home and well.

The total bill for the two dentals was £220.. When i picked him up i asked the vet if i could bring him in for a check up every few weeks so we could "catch" his teeth problems before it got to the not eating stage. I said £200 in a month was a lot of money!

She said to me if you cant afford a dental bunny then I should have it adopted or take it to a rescue centre!. I said i can afford normal treatment, but i doubt even a rescue centre or anyone else could afford £200 a month for a rabbits teeth! I was furious!

I know some of the bill was for the emergency treatment last month but yesterdays dental was routine! It was nearly £90!:shock: What is the normal cost of Dentals? Should i look for another vet as she said just a dental was £55-60! But they always give antibiotics etc with treatment. I still have all the meds from the last visit! Do they need to take xrays at every visit? Even if it was only 4 weeks ago?

He is fed high fibre pellets, has boxes, twigs and timothy hay to munch on so he has plenty to wear his teeth down.

I would never part with Nutmeg, but my god im sure no-one forks out £200 a month on dentals. There is no way i can keep that kind of payment up.:shock: I live in central Scotland. Any advice greatly appreciated

Hi my rabbit has serious dental disease and is only about 18 months old. He has quite a few problems that were only discovered after he had x-rays earlier on this year. He is on Baytril and Metacam every day twice a day and probably will be on medication for the rest of his life.
He is stable at the moment and is actually doing really well. He has a checkup at the vets every month, they check his weight, general health and also look in his mouth, although a lot of his problems cannot be seen by looking in his mouth. He has had two dentals where his teeth have been burred down so far.
My bun used to dribble a lot as well but we think this was a sign he was in pain or discomfort from his head and mouth, now he is stable he doesn't dribble at all. When he has a dental it costs me about £80 but this is for the operation and all the meds etc as well and apart from this which he has had done twice I obviously have to pay for his monthly check up and also his medication.
What exactly has your vet said is wrong with his teeth/mouth? Just wondering if it's similar to my Smudge's?
Hopefully you can get Nutmeg stable like my Smudge now is?

Dental bunny Nutmeg

She has just said his teeth had spurs on them and the first time it was cutting into his tongue. Thats why he couldnt eat. I guess this time i caught it early and dental was to burr down the spur again. No other problems as far as i could gather.
I know the meds add up but if he turns out to be a monthly dental bun then their prices are incredibly expensive. He was still really bright as i brought him inside on sunday before takng him to the vets on Monday and he was running around the house kicking his heels. Just wouldnt eat.

My rabbit has monthly dentals and has them conscious, it is about £30. It is hard to find someone who will do them conscious. For a dental under GA it probably is about £80-90.

If getting a conscious dental is an option you want to consider it would save having him put under GA every month. Some people would say that a consious dental is not as thorough (and I agree) but the alternative is a GA every few weeks.

Bunny dentals

Thanks for telling me how much your vet charges and your experience with your bun. I am hoping that i can encourgage him to eat more hay and will be giving him lots more things to chew!
I guess its just been a bad month for vets bills.
I was just annoyed at vets attitude when i asked the cost of a basic dental. I was polite and just enquiring for furture reference as i said £200 is a lot in a month! Especially if its going to be every month. Hopefully just one off! I will make sure he gets check ups once a month. That seems the way forward here. I am on a mission to get him dentally fit if i can. thankyou.

One of my rabbits needs dentals every 6-9 weeks and it costs me £50-£60 each time.

You could have a look around for another vet that would do his dentals cheaper, but make sure they are experienced with rabbits. I would recommend my vet but am not sure if you are near fife?

I paid about 55pound for a GA dental, and most of that was medication and aftercare I think I would be ringing around vets, getting recommendations etc and seeing if it is a possibility to move.

Have you tried him on different types of hay? Sophie goes wild for green Oat hay, which I mix into her farm bought stuff.

I second the conscious dentals option, it costs between £10 and £20 doen here, it's just finding a vet in your area that can do it.

If one of my rabbits has a molar burr under GA one vet practice charges a standard £90 and the other varies by how long they are under GA for (the aneasthetic is what bumps the cost up). The least I have paid is £60 and the most is £120.

We have incisors done conscious for about £15, or if they need doing regularly, removed for approx. £130.

Dental bunny

I am in Cumbernauld. Central Scotland. I work as a Countryside ranger so i will ask around and see if anyone knows a vet that is rabbit savvy. I am worried about the G.A if he needs frequent treatment.
Initially on Monday when the vet was examining his mouth he was struggling a little bit and one of his dew claws was pulled off and lay on the table with a little blood. The vet said " well there is the problem" i said looks like a claw to me not a tooth. :roll: After a few minutes he agreed. :lol:

I have a dental bunny, my Twinkle. But i got insurance for every one of my bunnies the day they became mine, so all her dentals are covered on insurance. This is where insurance is invaluable. I know lots of people on here say that saving is just as effective as insurance, i don't think that is the case when you have a dental bunny. Plus all the secondary problems that this can cause. i have claimed nearly £400 back in just over a year. i pay £8 a month for her. You'd never get her insured now n a million years but its something to think of in the future if you get any more

Sadly a lot of insurance companies wont pay out on dental bills for rabbits...some wont even cover rabbits in general! :shock:

If it's an old complaint (as in known before insurance was secured) then it also becomes invalid for cover.

BwfcAngel said:

I have a dental bunny, my Twinkle. But i got insurance for every one of my bunnies the day they became mine, so all her dentals are covered on insurance. This is where insurance is invaluable. I know lots of people on here say that saving is just as effective as insurance, i don't think that is the case when you have a dental bunny. Plus all the secondary problems that this can cause. i have claimed nearly £400 back in just over a year. i pay £8 a month for her. You'd never get her insured now n a million years but its something to think of in the future if you get any more

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Who did you insure them with if you don't mind me asking?

No, but looking on the positive side..... like bwfcAngel said, she has benefited from it, so it's not bad in all circumstances.

dental bunny

I will be trying him on different types of hay on your advice and when im out and about tomorrow i will get him some willow twigs as well.
I read on the forum some advice about getting them to eat more hay and will be trying all the ideas. Grating veg into it, spraying it with diluted apple juice etc. He likes boxes so i will get some crisp boxes for him tomorrow to tear apart. I guess i just gotta keep his mouth busy and see what happens.
I will look into a vet that does dentals under sedation and not G.A as im sure he cant keep this level of treatment up for much longer. I live in hope that i can make it better for him. I am really grateful to all the help here.

Sore point as BWFCAngle is insured with petplan but they pay for hers and wouldn't pay out for Jasmines trim and burr even though it wasn't done as a routine dental:roll: my vet even sent a letter explaining and they still wouldn't pay it, and where it gets better is that we both use the same vets:?

insurance

Yes you are very right. I should have got insurance. I have always had older rescued rabbits before and when i tried to get insurance the cost was very high and didnt cover most common ailments. This is the first young bunny i have had for a long time and sadly it didnt cross my mind because he was so young. Lesson learned. I have insurance for all my other animals. If i ever take on a young rabbit again i will most definately get insurance as soon as i get them home.

2 dentals in a month is very quick. I know their teeth grow quickly but even so!

You may find that on this occasion you have just been unlucky, it may well be that the stress of the first op caused him to stop eating and that caused the teeth to overgrow quickly again. It may be that now he's a bit more 'used' to the feeling, with some hay encouragement, he may not need another one for ages especially if it's more to do with diet and habit than a genetic problem.

My Santa is a snuffly/dental bun and she costs me a fortune in antibiotics and dentals (she had a normal dental last week it was £90), she's not insured either! Like you, my cats are insured but the bunnies aren't. I grow grass in a couple of old cat litter trays (with drainage holes punched in the bottom) so they have fresh grass as well as lots of hay, and this seems to help encourage her to keep on munching and maximises the time between dentals. Hay and/or grass is definitely the primary key...although as my vet said - my two nethies are the same age and they have lived together for 3 years on the same diet...yet one has perfect teeth and the other terrible, so there are often other factors like genetics in play. But hay and grass can definitely minimise the effects and lengthen the time between required treatments.

Good luck with your one

kayj said:

Sore point as BWFCAngle is insured with petplan but they pay for hers and wouldn't pay out for Jasmines trim and burr even though it wasn't done as a routine dental:roll: my vet even sent a letter explaining and they still wouldn't pay it, and where it gets better is that we both use the same vets:?

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My insurance won't pay out for the tenner or so it costs to have hers clipped/trimmed (at the front) but when hers get bad at the back (when the spurs reappear and she stops eating) and she has to have a GA then they will pay out.

Ive changed her hay now though as she was never much of a hay eater. As she is now more of a hay eater then her teeth (touch wood) are in a much better condition.

AlisonA

Thankyou for your optimism. It has cheered me up!

I live in hope that Nutmeg will have at least a few months before his next dental and even that i can make it better! He is a bright wee thing and young so im not going to think its all doom and gloom from here on in.
He was nearly 1 before he had his first dental so im wondering if the dental changed his bite and that was why it was so soon till the next one. Also your suggestion of the stress.
I was a dental nurse for years before i was a ranger so i still think in human teeth terms! I know buns teeth grow but a month is a very short time considering he had no problems before and any alteration to teeth can affect the bite. I live in hope. Thanks again for being optimistic. It helps a lot!