a reader of books
Warren Veteran
And vaccinations, of course.
I guess I'll start with the bad news (well, there isn't really any good news, exactly)? Casper's molars already have sharp edges on them, even though he had his last dental only five weeks ago.
The vet said they're not really spurs yet, but they will be, so he'll be having regular check-ups. As long as he's not showing any signs that it's bothering him we're just going to keep an eye on it, because a dental every five weeks would be too risky at his age, she said. I'm not sure what I can do about it... I've been trying to reduce their non-hay food like the vet said last time, so he'll eat more hay, so they're getting a smaller salad now, and less dried forage, but when I tried to decrease the amount of pellets they both had trouble staying at a healthy weight, so they're back to sharing 50g of Science Selective every day (for 3.6kg of bunny in total). I know grass is good for teeth, so I'll try to grow some grass for him. If anyone has any other advice I'd love to hear it. The vet did say, though, that he's likely chewing in a way that doesn't move his molars together right, so if that's the case, I'm not sure if eating more hay would even help?
Then Sophie... She's still very sensitive in her kidney area. It clearly bothered her when the vet touched her there. Since her blood tests and ultrasound didn't show anything abnormal, though, we're not sure why. I also brought up that she's having some trouble keeping herself clean underneath. She's not dirty, but it's not as spotless white as it used to be. So, the vet thinks she might have some arthritis in her spine, and said that might even explain why she's sensitive near her kidneys since the kidneys are attached to the spine? She's also really compulsively washing that spot under her chin again, so we talked about whether it might be a sign of her being in pain, and, well, it could be that she's having arthritis pain, or her kidney area that's hurting her, or dental pain (because Sophie has some sharp edges on her molars as well, though not as bad as Casper, and since they don't seem to bother her right now, she'll just have regular check-ups as well) that's causing her to overgroom, so we're going to put her on pain meds for a couple of days and see if that helps with her keeping herself clean and/or the overgrooming, and if it does turn out she's in pain because the pain meds help her, we'll do an x-ray of her spine to check for arthritis, and if that's not present, we'll do a dental since that would be the next likely thing to be hurting her that we can do something about, since we can't do anything about her kidney area because we don't know what's causing it.
So, their health check could've gone better, but it also could've been worse given their age, and at least we have plans in place for both of them, so we'll just see what happens.
It was a tiring outing for all three of us, and Sophie's mostly been resting
while Casper has been very good and tried out his new hay rack while eating hay.
I guess I'll start with the bad news (well, there isn't really any good news, exactly)? Casper's molars already have sharp edges on them, even though he had his last dental only five weeks ago.
The vet said they're not really spurs yet, but they will be, so he'll be having regular check-ups. As long as he's not showing any signs that it's bothering him we're just going to keep an eye on it, because a dental every five weeks would be too risky at his age, she said. I'm not sure what I can do about it... I've been trying to reduce their non-hay food like the vet said last time, so he'll eat more hay, so they're getting a smaller salad now, and less dried forage, but when I tried to decrease the amount of pellets they both had trouble staying at a healthy weight, so they're back to sharing 50g of Science Selective every day (for 3.6kg of bunny in total). I know grass is good for teeth, so I'll try to grow some grass for him. If anyone has any other advice I'd love to hear it. The vet did say, though, that he's likely chewing in a way that doesn't move his molars together right, so if that's the case, I'm not sure if eating more hay would even help?Then Sophie... She's still very sensitive in her kidney area. It clearly bothered her when the vet touched her there. Since her blood tests and ultrasound didn't show anything abnormal, though, we're not sure why. I also brought up that she's having some trouble keeping herself clean underneath. She's not dirty, but it's not as spotless white as it used to be. So, the vet thinks she might have some arthritis in her spine, and said that might even explain why she's sensitive near her kidneys since the kidneys are attached to the spine? She's also really compulsively washing that spot under her chin again, so we talked about whether it might be a sign of her being in pain, and, well, it could be that she's having arthritis pain, or her kidney area that's hurting her, or dental pain (because Sophie has some sharp edges on her molars as well, though not as bad as Casper, and since they don't seem to bother her right now, she'll just have regular check-ups as well) that's causing her to overgroom, so we're going to put her on pain meds for a couple of days and see if that helps with her keeping herself clean and/or the overgrooming, and if it does turn out she's in pain because the pain meds help her, we'll do an x-ray of her spine to check for arthritis, and if that's not present, we'll do a dental since that would be the next likely thing to be hurting her that we can do something about, since we can't do anything about her kidney area because we don't know what's causing it.
So, their health check could've gone better, but it also could've been worse given their age, and at least we have plans in place for both of them, so we'll just see what happens.
It was a tiring outing for all three of us, and Sophie's mostly been resting
while Casper has been very good and tried out his new hay rack while eating hay.
