Gizmo's teeth again!!

Last night Gizmo had a bit of a scuffle with Trinny (his potential girlfriend). As I was checking them both over I noticed that he had broken ont of his bottom front teeth and the other was very wobbly :!: I rushed him to the vets this morning to get him checked out. The vet has admitted him and is going to remove both his bottom teeth and I have to collect him tomorrow morning He is only just growing back his top front teeth that he broke 3 weeks ago. I do know that the family we rescued him from didn't have him on a proper diet ie no hay and I have been informed that the previous owner's partner clipped his teeth with a pair of pliers :evil: Can't help but wonder if this has caused him lasting damage We are trying to get him to eat hay but he doesn't eat as much as I'd like him too Any suggestions would be extremely helpful

Ouch!! Poor little Gizmo

I would be inclined to ask the vet to remove all his front teeth including the roots, so that they do not regrow, as it sounds as if they might continue to cause problems. If the bottom teeth are removed completely but not the top ones, there will be nothing for him to wear his top teeth down against and he will need very frequent dentals which is fairly stressful. He will cope perfectly well without his front teeth, you will just need to grate his carrots etc and chop up his hay so that he can eat them more easily.

I'd probably have all his teeth removed. I've got 3 buns who had incisor problems and all of them eat much more hay now they've had their incisors out than when they had them, even after having them burred down. I've read that misaligned teeth are of no use to the bunny anyway, and if they're missing a top or bottom set they wouldn't be able to bite with them anyway so they'd just be getting in the way.
Unfortunately there's a chance that if his front teeth are in bad condition then his molar teeth will be too - has the vet looked at them? If not, ask him to have a look while he's under anaesthetic to get a good idea of what state they're in.
Because of this, it's important to encourage him to eat lots of hay. My incisorless buns have a big range of hay to encourage them to eat, including:
- timothy hay
- the new 'soft' cut of timothy hay (from Bunnybasics)
- chopped timothy hay (pre-chopped, from Bunnybasics)
- high fibre grass mix (same as above)
- Readigrass (available from petshops)
- meadow hay (farm bale)
- seed hay (from Chinchillas2Shop)
- very rare, small amount of alfalfa hay mixed in with meadow hay to encourage them to eat both hays
- timothy hay cubes, broken up (as they can't bite into the solid cubes, but seem to love the taste of them!)
- timothy hay pellets (from Bunnybasics)

I also grow a tub of grass indoors for them to have, as well as keeping a patch of longer grass in the garden for them to munch on in their run.
When they get veg it's all the dark leafy fibrous stuff, to encourage molar wear - carrot tops, kale, spring greens, cauliflower leaves, green cabbage, romaine lettuce, etc.

This diet seems to do the trick and they can now go a lot longer without getting molar problems, and they don't seem to mind eating hay so much when they've got such a variety

The vet mentioned that they would probably remove his top front teeth at a later date. He had his molars checked whilst under anaesthetic and he had very tiny spurs but nothing major so the were dealt with whilst he was asleep. Hopefully with lots of encouragement we can get Gizmo on to eating hay which will help his teeth. Feel so angry about what his previous owners did :twisted: can't wait to pick my little guy up tomorrow morning