Another dental question

Dear All,

After a week of being a little off colour, I took one of my rabbits to the vet today. By off colour I mean she hasn't been eating as much as usual and generally has been very withdrawn. This morning she wouldn't eat so I was very worried. On taking Rosie to the vets the lady looked at her teeth and seemed to think it may be her back ones, instead of the teeth being flat they seem to be less worn on one side therefore creating sharpness on their edges. This may be causing pain when she eats.

Rosie is going in again tomorrow to have these teeth filed. My question is when a rabbit has one dental does this automatically mean she will need ongoing treatment?

Thanks for your help people, you're always a saviour to any of my rabbits worries - of which there are many!

Mary

xxxxx

In MY experience if a bun has dental problems they are likely to continue but can be limited by the correct diet.
Is she a good hay eater?

It depends on whether the Dental issues are aquired or congenital and how far advanced the problem is at this stage.

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/info-sheets/dental_disease.htm

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

http://www.vetdent.eu/cpd/cpddownloads/chart-lapis.pdf

I guess I'll just have to wait and see. She does eat hay but i'm not really sure how much as she shares a hutch with Blue and she is a greedy guts. The vet said all i can do is encourage her to eat hay and grass and to drop back on the nuggets. xx

Thank you for the links, they were very useful x

I had exactley the same with Bailey about 5 weeks ago now, her back molars had spurred off to, i paid £67 for her to have them filed under GA, the vet said she could need them doing once every few weeks :shock:, to try and avoid paying for vet bills and also the stress for bailey ive almost completely changed her diet, if its your bunns molars that are the problem then encouraging her to eat leafy greens will really help, basically the leafy greens need to be chewed up by the molars rather than with pellets were they can pretty much just break them down with the front teeth, so bailey now has literally two big handfulls of dandilion leaves a day and about 2 egg cups full of pellets, she also has timothy and meadow hay and a few leaves of Basil a day, it really seems to be working, i think its mainly the dandilion leaves as i can see her chewing with her back ones when she eats them, unforntunetly though dental problems dont usually go away with bunns, but all you can try to do is prevent them and make it as long as possible between hope this helped x

Thank you ever so much for taking the time to advise me, I really appreciate it. I picked Rosie up from the vets on Friday and she was dopey all evening bless her, they gave me some fibre supplement for her tummy to syringe feed so i have been giving her that much to her dislike. Saturday she had a run around the garden, still not herself but she seems to be nosing around a bit more and she managed to eat some dandelions which i went and picked for her from down the road. Lovely big ones So she does seem to be interested in eating again which is a relief. Last night she nibbled on some broccoli and even took a few pellets of dry food which was great. Again this morning she has had some dandelion leaves. She still isn't eating as much as she used to but i'm guessing it's going to take a while for her to get the shock of Friday out of her system. I have to take her to the vet tomorrow for a check up and then hopefully we can come home and she'll get back to normal. I shall definately look at changing the diet and offer more greens and dandelions, also I shall try the basil. Glad to hear your bun is doing well I hope this problem doesn't crop up to often, £120 it's cost. Of course you pay it and would pay double if need be but it is rather expensive x

is the fibre suppliment called fibre plex? like a thick paste, cs bailey hated this aswell, she doesnt allow anyone to syringe feed her :roll: i got around the problem by sandwiching the fibre plex between a mint or basil leaf.
Glad to hear rosies doing better and hope the vets go's well,
x

It is yes! I don't think i need to use it from today, she seems to be nibbling on food this morning Thanks again xx