Dental advice?

JellyEllie · Jul 2, 2015

Hello, I have a 5 year old male lionhead rabbit and he just had his first dental for his incisors and cheek teeth on the 30th of June. He's been struggling to eat hay and hard food like his favourite strawberry leaves. He wants to eat it but he chews it but it just goes slightly mushy and falls out of his mouth so he gets frustrated and gives up.

I've been mixing his pellets with water and giving him slithers of banana as it's nice and soft and my priority at the moment is to try to prevent GI stasis. I look him to the vet again today (2nd of July) to see if this was normal and to check how his teeth are doing but they don't line up correctly in his mouth so that could be the reason for his difficulty eating.

His gut sounds fine so I've been told to keep doing what I'm doing but he's going to need repeat dentals for the rest of his life which I'm fine with paying for (I'd sell my kidney for this rabbit) but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can feed him in a similar way? I didn't know whether it would be safe to grind his strawberry leaves/pea shoots and things into a paste? I've been reluctant to try it because I know that when grass goes through a lawnmower it ferments so I wasn't sure if this would have the same effect. Just I know that this diet isn't good for him and I don't want to have another problem on top of his dental issues.

Also for those of you who have rabbits with repeat dental problems how long does it take for them to get back to normal eating after an operation? I'm hoping that this eating issue is a result of sore teeth or something since he was eating fine before the operation it was complete luck that they found this issue during a vaccination/nail clipping otherwise I wouldn't have known until it was too late. Is a lifestyle of constant dental surgery safe/humane?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong place!)

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thank you.

MightyMax · Jul 2, 2015

JellyEllie said:
Hello, I have a 5 year old male lionhead rabbit and he just had his first dental for his incisors and cheek teeth on the 30th of June. He's been struggling to eat hay and hard food like his favourite strawberry leaves. He wants to eat it but he chews it but it just goes slightly mushy and falls out of his mouth so he gets frustrated and gives up.

I've been mixing his pellets with water and giving him slithers of banana as it's nice and soft and my priority at the moment is to try to prevent GI stasis. I look him to the vet again today (2nd of July) to see if this was normal and to check how his teeth are doing but they don't line up correctly in his mouth so that could be the reason for his difficulty eating.

His gut sounds fine so I've been told to keep doing what I'm doing but he's going to need repeat dentals for the rest of his life which I'm fine with paying for (I'd sell my kidney for this rabbit) but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can feed him in a similar way? I didn't know whether it would be safe to grind his strawberry leaves/pea shoots and things into a paste? I've been reluctant to try it because I know that when grass goes through a lawnmower it ferments so I wasn't sure if this would have the same effect. Just I know that this diet isn't good for him and I don't want to have another problem on top of his dental issues.

Also for those of you who have rabbits with repeat dental problems how long does it take for them to get back to normal eating after an operation? I'm hoping that this eating issue is a result of sore teeth or something since he was eating fine before the operation it was complete luck that they found this issue during a vaccination/nail clipping otherwise I wouldn't have known until it was too late. Is a lifestyle of constant dental surgery safe/humane?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong place!)

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thank you.

Hi there and welcome to the Forum :wave:

When you say he had a dental for his cheek teeth and incisors - what did the vet do to his incisor teeth? It sounds like he is having trouble with those as well? If they are serving no good purpose, your vet can extract them. It's commonly done and rabbits recover and do better than before without them :thumb:

As for eating after a dental - I would soften pellets, give a few porridge oats, grind up his normal food - anything that will keep him eating at this point. As you say, you don't want stasis on top of the dental.

Did your vet give him Metacam (painkiller) to come home with? he will need that for a few days (probably) if his mouth is sore. My vet doesn't always prescribe it after dentals, but I think it's a good idea.

Just because he's needed one dental, doesn't mean he will continue to need them regularly. You could try offering him some freshly picked grass and perhaps some readigrass (which is short chopped and delicious). Hay may be that bit too tough for him to grind with his sore mouth at the moment!

Good luck with him. You got him to 5 years old without a dental - well done you

Jack's-Jane · Jul 2, 2015

JellyEllie said:
Hello, I have a 5 year old male lionhead rabbit and he just had his first dental for his incisors and cheek teeth on the 30th of June. He's been struggling to eat hay and hard food like his favourite strawberry leaves. He wants to eat it but he chews it but it just goes slightly mushy and falls out of his mouth so he gets frustrated and gives up.

I've been mixing his pellets with water and giving him slithers of banana as it's nice and soft and my priority at the moment is to try to prevent GI stasis. I look him to the vet again today (2nd of July) to see if this was normal and to check how his teeth are doing but they don't line up correctly in his mouth so that could be the reason for his difficulty eating.

His gut sounds fine so I've been told to keep doing what I'm doing but he's going to need repeat dentals for the rest of his life which I'm fine with paying for (I'd sell my kidney for this rabbit) but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can feed him in a similar way? I didn't know whether it would be safe to grind his strawberry leaves/pea shoots and things into a paste? I've been reluctant to try it because I know that when grass goes through a lawnmower it ferments so I wasn't sure if this would have the same effect. Just I know that this diet isn't good for him and I don't want to have another problem on top of his dental issues.

Also for those of you who have rabbits with repeat dental problems how long does it take for them to get back to normal eating after an operation? I'm hoping that this eating issue is a result of sore teeth or something since he was eating fine before the operation it was complete luck that they found this issue during a vaccination/nail clipping otherwise I wouldn't have known until it was too late. Is a lifestyle of constant dental surgery safe/humane?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong place!)

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thank you.

Hello, did the Vet explain exactly what was done during the recent Dental ? If there was any soft tissue damage caused by molar spurs,sharp points on the crowns of the molar teeth as seen here:

If there was any soft tissue damage this will take a few days to fully heal even when the actual spurs have been removed.

Some Rabbits do require a few days of an anti-inflammatory analgesic such as Metacam to address any remaining oral discomfort. Obviously if the Rabbit has a sore mouth they will be reluctant to eat.

I would offer him some hand picked grass and also some fresh herbs such as coriander or fenugreek. The pungent smell of fresh herbs will often tempt a Rabbit to eat. There are also dried grasses which can be softer than some hays and these may get your Rabbit more interested in eating too. The sooner you can get him back to eating hay the better as as you probably know Rabbit's teeth grow continuously and so hay eating is essential to keep the crowns of the teeth appropriately worn down.

How often a Rabbit may need a Dental is really an individual case matter. Some Rabbits may only need one Dental and then as long as their diet remains 80%-90% hay they may never need another one. However some Rabbits may continue to need Dentals, some as frequently as every 6-8 weeks some as seldom as once a year.

You mention that your Vet said that your Rabbit has some malocclusion. One reason that this can occur in adult Rabbits is due tooth root elongation. This can lead to the crowns growing out of alignment and there is then poor attrition between the upper and lower teeth. This results in the formation of molar spurs and elongated crowns. Hence I mentioned trying to get your Rabbit back to eating grass/hay ASAP.

I dont know what hays you feed your Rabbit, but there is a wide variety available now. The Hay Experts are very good :

https://www.thehayexperts.co.uk/edibles/hay-grasses.html

JellyEllie · Jul 2, 2015

MightyMax said:
Hi there and welcome to the Forum :wave:

When you say he had a dental for his cheek teeth and incisors - what did the vet do to his incisor teeth? It sounds like he is having trouble with those as well? If they are serving no good purpose, your vet can extract them. It's commonly done and rabbits recover and do better than before without them :thumb:

As for eating after a dental - I would soften pellets, give a few porridge oats, grind up his normal food - anything that will keep him eating at this point. As you say, you don't want stasis on top of the dental.

Did your vet give him Metacam (painkiller) to come home with? he will need that for a few days (probably) if his mouth is sore. My vet doesn't always prescribe it after dentals, but I think it's a good idea.

Just because he's needed one dental, doesn't mean he will continue to need them regularly. You could try offering him some freshly picked grass and perhaps some readigrass (which is short chopped and delicious). Hay may be that bit too tough for him to grind with his sore mouth at the moment!

Good luck with him. You got him to 5 years old without a dental - well done you

I'm not entirely sure I think they were drilled/filed? I'm 17 so they tend to avoid telling me the technical stuff. I've tried looking into it but since they don't tell me much or put it in layman's terms which is frustrating because it makes it difficult to work out what kind of process was used when I read about it.

He wasn't given Metacam but if he stops eating it or seems to be in any more discomfort I'll definitely ask about it. I think it might be his incisors causing the majority of the problems because he'll eat little scraps of carrot tops and strawberry leaves if I hand feed them to him so it might be that he's struggling to pick them up/ pull them in to his back teeth. I'll try the readigrass too so thank you very much for the quick reply and the advice I really appreciate it!

JellyEllie · Jul 2, 2015

Jack's-Jane said:
Hello, did the Vet explain exactly what was done during the recent Dental ? If there was any soft tissue damage caused by molar spurs,sharp points on the crowns of the molar teeth as seen here:

If there was any soft tissue damage this will take a few days to fully heal even when the actual spurs have been removed.

Some Rabbits do require a few days of an anti-inflammatory analgesic such as Metacam to address any remaining oral discomfort. Obviously if the Rabbit has a sore mouth they will be reluctant to eat.

I would offer him some hand picked grass and also some fresh herbs such as coriander or fenugreek. The pungent smell of fresh herbs will often tempt a Rabbit to eat. There are also dried grasses which can be softer than some hays and these may get your Rabbit more interested in eating too. The sooner you can get him back to eating hay the better as as you probably know Rabbit's teeth grow continuously and so hay eating is essential to keep the crowns of the teeth appropriately worn down.

How often a Rabbit may need a Dental is really an individual case matter. Some Rabbits may only need one Dental and then as long as their diet remains 80%-90% hay they may never need another one. However some Rabbits may continue to need Dentals, some as frequently as every 6-8 weeks some as seldom as once a year.

You mention that your Vet said that your Rabbit has some malocclusion. One reason that this can occur in adult Rabbits is due tooth root elongation. This can lead to the crowns growing out of alignment and there is then poor attrition between the upper and lower teeth. This results in the formation of molar spurs and elongated crowns. Hence I mentioned trying to get your Rabbit back to eating grass/hay ASAP.

I dont know what hays you feed your Rabbit, but there is a wide variety available now. The Hay Experts are very good :

https://www.thehayexperts.co.uk/edibles/hay-grasses.html

The vet pointed out that his teeth needed surgery on the Friday and he went in for it on the Tuesday but she said that there wasn't any soft tissue damage as of yet and it wasn't mentioned today either but he's a cheeky little thing and has a bad habit of sticking his tongue in the way of where the vet is looking.

I'm going to try feeding him small pieces of grass and readigrass and hopefully we'll be able to move back onto hay soon. I feed him Timothy hay from Dean's farm but I buy it through The Hay Experts. (It's the only one he'd eat from their six piece taster pack.) If there's another hay that is better for the rabbits I'd definitely be open to try him on it!

Thank you for the reply and helpful information!

MightyMax · Jul 2, 2015

JellyEllie said:
I'm not entirely sure I think they were drilled/filed? I'm 17 so they tend to avoid telling me the technical stuff. I've tried looking into it but since they don't tell me much or put it in layman's terms which is frustrating because it makes it difficult to work out what kind of process was used when I read about it.

He wasn't given Metacam but if he stops eating it or seems to be in any more discomfort I'll definitely ask about it. I think it might be his incisors causing the majority of the problems because he'll eat little scraps of carrot tops and strawberry leaves if I hand feed them to him so it might be that he's struggling to pick them up/ pull them in to his back teeth. I'll try the readigrass too so thank you very much for the quick reply and the advice I really appreciate it!

I have been trying to think of the most tactful way to say this ... I think your vet should have given you all the information about your rabbit's teeth regardless of the fact you are 17!

Also, if your vet hasn't mentioned the possibility of removing the front teeth then I would wonder if he feels confident to do it? My vet isn't confident with removing rabbits' cheek teeth and would prefer a specialist did it, do it may be you would want someone with more experience to do that surgery (if you and your vet feel it's necessary)?

It's often *very* difficult for some rabbits to eat hay immediately after a dental. Grass and readigrass has just the same tooth grinding effect and are easier to eat. Poor little mite, sounds like he's hungry and wants to eat!

Please ask away, that's what we're here for :thumb:

Dental advice?

JellyEllie

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MightyMax

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Jack's-Jane

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JellyEllie

New Kit

JellyEllie

New Kit

MightyMax

Banned

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