How many teeth can a rabbit lose?

Hello all,

We have taken our much loved Poppy to the vet for a dental check up. She is our little special needs bun because her teeth seem to be a dire mess... Last time she went, one was completely loose in its socket and our vet, John, just lifted it out. This time round, she lost three more teeth and had an abcess we were completely unaware of!

She is the most petite and loved bun and doesn't even make a sign that she is in pain... No grinding (probably partly due to the fact that her teeth don't aling... she doesn't even tooth purr!!), and no drooling... We only really notice something is wrong between her regular dental check ups when she starts limiting her feeding...

John started raising the question with us that in the future we might need to consider putting her to sleep...

I can appreciate that rabbits need to have the teeth on the opposite jaw to grind against and wear it down and the moment you start losing teeth it only makes a bad situation worse... But how many/ few teeth does a bun need to have a decent quality of life...?

Bleakly,
podlet

I thought they could do without altogether as long as food it grated/mashed for them :?

Umm, I not sure it's just a numbers issue - it depends which they loose. If they are matching pairs they could loose more than if it was all the top teeth (for example). I think rabbits have 5 teeth on each side so 20 altogether, so their are a few left yet

I would say it becomes an issue when she's no longer able to keep weight on.

Monitoring weight can be a good way to monitor teeth, you can do it on your kitchen/bathroom scales and once a week just keep a chart.

Keeping her fibre levels up would be the biggest issue as loosing back teeth reduces her ability to eat hay. I would recommend you go for the highest fibre level dry food you can find - Allen & Page is the higest I think, with Oxbow and Supreme Science the next best. You can mix these with water if she is unable to chew.

I guess long term you may have to feed her a speciel diet of soft foods but if you're prepared to do that and it keeps her weight on and she's not in any discomfort then you could manage it that way.

Pureed vegetables (make you own or veggie baby food) mixed with high fibre pellets, porridge etc. may work well.

Best wishes,
Tamsin

Poppy has lost top and bottom teeth, but unfortunately they haven't been opposing pairs, which means that some of her teeth wear even slower now than others and might need dentals more often..

I know that you can remove bunny incisors, but I really didn't think it would be wise to remove molars...

Cord and I are more than happy to feed our buns separately.... our newest little bun, Zoot, is our only bun that eats hay, and we certainly aren't letting him feed with the other buns and get used to a predominantly pellet diet.... We have tried in absolute vain (and I really do mean, we have tried everything!) but at least there is one hay-muncher in the house

Thanks for the suggestions Tam!

podlet, x

Hi, I just checked out the fibre content for allen and page it's 23%
Oxbow has 29%.

All tho oxbow protein is 14% and allen and page has 12%

Travis has had 5 molars removed and is doing fine. 2 were removed originally due to freequent spurs - oposing teeth. Then 2 teeth were loose and had to be removed, so 1 opposing tooth was also removed. It may be worth finding out if any of the oposing teeth can be removed if you think dental problems will be severe. Travis does fine, rabbits have molars and pre-molars, so usually they can lose quite a few without it being a problem.

One toothed bun!

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum so apologies if this topic has got too old...

My bun, Alice, has only one tooth due to a number of teeth being removed and the rest falling out!

I feed Alice on blended greens such as Spring Greens, Spinach, Watercress, Curly Kale, Mint etc. I sprinkle some recovery feed to increase her fibre levels and give it a good mix. She can also eat the small pellets such as Excel for dwarf buns.

Unfortunately she can no longer eat hay but she has a go at sucking at them although it won't do her any good with her fibre levels!

We have the occasional problem (every few months) where she slows down and doesn't eat as much. In these cases, I liquid feed her with recovery feed and she usually starts eating within the same day. This is to avoid her going into GI Stasis, although when this happens a trip to the vets and a gut motility injection later and she's eating like a horse (or bun) again!

I believe that as long as your bunny keeps the weight on and has a good quality of life then they're fine. It's a lot of extra work, but if you're a bunny mum then that's the sacrifice...it's also very rewarding when you see them doing happy bunny jumps in the garden!