Teeth length question

[Mummel]

Hi!

I know I have not been here for a while and many might not know that I have a bunny now. I have been wanting to introduce it but the health issue concerns me more right now.

My husband bought be a Holland Lop after our move into a new apartment ( I did all the painting and renovation so the bunny is the reward )

She is a cutie and has brought us much joy. I am always overly careful when it comes to a pets health and watch the way she eats as well as check her for any signs of illness regular.

She is eating okay but bigger pieces, like a carrot seem to give her some trouble. She takes out small chunks only. So I took a look at her teeth, which are nice and straight but the top teeth look a tad too long and the bottom too short (est. 8mm top, 4mm bottom) :?

I googled this picture to have a comparison..they are not like that. -

http://www.peteducation.com/images/articles/10130rabbit_teeth.jpg

(maybe I can get a picture of her teeth too..)

I remember her also making gnarling sounds sometimes, as if she was rubbing her teeth against each other. So I think it is best ifI take her to the vet on Monday, hubby is very concerned about the costs. In Germany teeth clipping is about 30$, surgery 80$, maybe someone could give me an estimate of how much to expect?

I am thinking she might have a birth defect since it appeared this early..so that would also mean regular trims.

Well I was hoping that maybe someone could tell me a little about teeth problems and what are the best ways to take care of them.

And I promise once she is better I will introduce my new bunny with pictures and all

Emi

 

[Mummel]

I was able to take pictures, luckily my bunny does not mind, she was chilling lol

Straight front view..

Close up

Top really seems to long or am I going crazy?

Emi

 

[naturestee]

Yes, it does look like she has malocclusion (misshapen front teeth). The top teeth should rest just in front of the bottom ones and they do look too long. You'll need to have a vet trim her teeth regularly, how often is different from rabbit to rabbit. There was a rabbit at the shelter here with teeth 10x worse than that, she needed tooth trims every two weeks. They eventually had her incisors pulled because nobody would adopt a rabbit that needed vet care every other week.

She is a cutie, by the way! Congrats on convincing the hubby to get a bun!

 

[JadeIcing]

I can't tell you to much but I do know hollands are prone to teeth issues.

 

[Maureen Las]

I am the wrong person to talk to asI have a lop that has a very horrific mouth of teeth problems, however that is not always the case
it does look like her front uppers are a tad too long bottoms also look like they should be evened.so it is important to take her to a rabbit knowledgeable vet only..
he may clip the front teeth or file them ..filing is the preferred method but has to be done under anesthesia.
if she appears to have further problems you may want to to get a full set mouth x-rays as a baseline.


http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=11901&forum_id=10

 

[Hollybaby]

:yeahthat:like she said deffinantly take her to the vet to get them filled down. not trying to worry you or anything but, filling can be painful for buns. also untill you get to the vet, give her something to chew on to get those teeth filled down as much as possible. like a wood block or a straw basket! ecspecialy the basket that always works with my buns:biggrin:

[align=center]Madeline:bunnydance:[/align]

 

[Mummel]

naturestee wrote:

Yes, it does look like she has malocclusion (misshapen front teeth). The top teeth should rest just in front of the bottom ones and they do look too long. You'll need to have a vet trim her teeth regularly, how often is different from rabbit to rabbit. There was a rabbit at the shelter here with teeth 10x worse than that, she needed tooth trims every two weeks. They eventually had her incisors pulled because nobody would adopt a rabbit that needed vet care every other week.

She is a cutie, by the way! Congrats on convincing the hubby to get a bun!

Oh.. And I was hoping the bottom teeth are in the front because of the length..so she has that too.

Hm...shouldnt the vet have seen that when she was9 weeks old?

She is from a rabbitry..I'm just wondering whether she had it when I got her.

I'm glad my hubby let me get a bun but I don't like how he reacts to the teeth issue. He is worried the bunny will get very expensive. I do have bunny savings that I will use for the vet but if she would have to go weekly I would run out of them quickly.

How much is teeth clipping? I don't have the slightest clue I just know I was shocked after my first visit to a vet here...so much more expensive than where I used to live before.

I do know 2 rabbit savvy vets in my area, I will take one day off tuesday to get her examined.

And yes, she is a cutie and now I am really worried about her having to get anesthesia for the teeth clipping I also had 4 pets die after clipping in the past, they just stopped eating. That was a long time ago though, vets are better these days.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

Mummel wrote:

Hm...shouldnt the vet have seen that when she was9 weeks old?

Maybe not at 9 weeks, it might have taken a lil while longer to get to the point that they are at now, so at that young they might have not been like that.

She is from a rabbitry..I'm just wondering whether she had it when I got her.

I'm glad my hubby let me get a bun but I don't like how he reacts to the teeth issue. He is worried the bunny will get very expensive. I do have bunny savings that I will use for the vet but if she would have to go weekly I would run out of them quickly.

What i would do is go to the vet and get the teeth evaluated to make sure it is the front teeth only and not the back ones also. If the front are not lined up then it could throw the back ones out. I have a rabbit with Really bad Malo and he has to be seen by the vet every 4 weeks or so, the vet her self taught me how to do it and i have done it on occasion but it still freaks me out so i take him to her. It cost me around 30.00 to get it done. My vet uses a clipper type thing, but with using something like that you run the risk of gettin an absess from the tooth breaking. The other alternative is surgery, for my bun, to have the teeth removed but at the begining of the year we did that and he almost died on me so unless it is an emergency and he needs it done we will just clip.

Clipping is not very liked with most bunny owners because of the risk of root absess , but the other alternative is putting my bun under anestesia once a month and that route would cost me an arm and a leg.

How much is teeth clipping? I don't have the slightest clue I just know I was shocked after my first visit to a vet here...so much more expensive than where I used to live before.

I do know 2 rabbit savvy vets in my area, I will take one day off tuesday to get her examined.

And yes, she is a cutie and now I am really worried about her having to get anesthesia for the teeth clipping I also had 4 pets die after clipping in the past, they just stopped eating. That was a long time ago though, vets are better these days.

Your buns teeth dont really look that bad by the pic, not as bad a Sooty's teeth, so i wouldnt think that it would have to be done as often as i do, but like i said a vet visit is the best route to go to have the front and the Back checked.

 

[12354somebunny]

Hi everyone,

I just logged on to start a new topic on malocclusion, and then I saw this post. So, rather than having 2 separate posts on the same topic, I'll 'hop' onto this post.. I hope you're ok with that, Mummel

A few days ago, I found out that my rabbit (Hans) has malocclusion. Hans is a 4 mth old Netherland Dwarf. I finally managed to get a picture of his teeth, and here it is:

When we got him at 8 weeks, his teeth looked normal. We have been feeding him Oxbow 15/23 and unlimited alfalfa & grass hay. He eats a lot of hay, mostly alfalfa, so I don't think his teeth issues are diet-related.

I've checked with the breeder I got him from, and the breeder assured me that Hans was not dropped or had a fall when he was a baby.. so that rules out head trauma as a cause.

I guess it's most likely genetics.. the breeder also said that Hans' parents have not produced any offspring with malocclusion so far. Looks like Hans is the 'lucky' one.

As luck will have it, my vet is away on holiday and will be back next week. I will send Hans for a check-up then. Before that, I would like to know if there are other things which I should get the vet to do? (Vets in Malaysia are not very rabbit-savvy yet, the vet that I go to seems to know more about rabbits than other vets, but I'm not sure how experienced he is with treating malocclusion). Should I get him to look at Hans' molars as well? I've read that this requires the rabbit to be sedated.. would that be too traumatic for Hans? He is only 4mths old :?

How high are the chances of Hans having molar spurs? Right now he is eating fine, no drooling or other signs that he is in pain.. I'm planning to send him for his neuter when he is 6mths old.. would it be too long if I wait til then for the vet to have a look at his molars?

If the vet proceeds to clip Hans' front teeth (I'm not sure if he has the tools to grind teeth), would he need to be sedated as well? I've read & seen some youtube videos where the rabbit is wide awake while its teeth gets clipped, but those rabbits are so tame.. I think Hans would put up a struggle.. I don't want him or his tooth roots to get hurt :?

I also read that bacteria infection of the tooth root can cause maloclussion. How can we determine this? Culture a sample taken from Hans' gums? Unfortunately, there is only one lab facility here which MAY be able to perform a culture, and it's really really far away without a culture, is there any other way to determine if the tooth issues are bacteria-related?

Sorry for the super long post.. I have a million questions swimming in my head right now thanks for reading this and thanks in advance for your replies.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

Somebunny i think that rabbits like Nethies and Lops are more prone to Malo because of the shape of thier heads, so it could just be that it is because of the breed that his teeth are like that.



I would say your best bet is to get Hans into the vet as soon as you can, rabbit teeth grow pretty fast and you want to make sure that nothing else happens or they get too overgrown. I would possibly print out whatever you can on Malo since the vets wehre you are at are not really rabbit savy, something like Malo should really be taken care of by a vet that is rabbit savy. I would suggest that the vet look at the molars to make sure that they are ok, they can get a quick look without the rabbit being put under anesteshia. They can also get x rays to see the teeth.



If the vet proceeds to clip Hans' front teeth (I'm not sure if he has the tools to grind teeth), would he need to be sedated as well? I've read & seen some youtube videos where the rabbit is wide awake while its teeth gets clipped, but those rabbits are so tame.. I think Hans would put up a struggle.. I don't want him or his tooth roots to get hurt :?>>>>>>>>>> I dont know what to tell you to do about clipping the teeth with a vet that isnt rabbit savy, but then again i dont see what choice you have if thier are no rabbit savy vets there? There are two ways to get the teeth down one isgrinding and the other is clipping, clipping being the less popular choice for many reasons. My Sooty has his teeth clipped with a clipper like instrument, and he is wide awake and not sedated, takes a few minutes and he isnt horribly stressed that i can see. I have even cut his teeth but i much rather have the vet do it,lol. Then there is grinding, with grinding i believe they have to be sedated for that. With cutting the teeth there is always the risk of him getting a root abcesse, if this happens we will have to have his teeth removed , which we did try to do at the beginging of the year but we almost lost him so we will not do that unless necessary. To me it is 50/50 he could go his whole life and never get a root abcess, and the clipping be fine, or he could have somet hing happen. 50/50 if i get them removed or put under to get them grinded down. It is a personal choice for me.





Hope some of this helps you, as far as the root bacteria, i do not know anything about that maybe someone else will be able to help you with that.

 

[12354somebunny]

Thanks, Fran!

I just got back from the vet (I tried my luck and the vet had just got back from his holiday!!).

The vet told me to bring Hans back to the clinic on Tuesday, he needs to sedate Hans in order to grind his teeth as Hans is not calm enough to have his teeth trimmed while awake.

The sad news is that.. repeated sedation may kill my bunny There was a lop rabbit which had to be taken in to the vet frequently to have her teeth trimmed and grinded. One day, she just couldn't pull through the procedure. The vet said there was just too much anesthesia accumulated in her body

I'm so sad to hear this. I was prepared for a lifetime of tooth trimming.. but it didn't cross my mind that repeated sedation could kill Hans..

Fran, when you said that you almost lost Sooty.. what happened there?

At first, I didn't want to consider the option of removing Hans' teeth.. I would prefer to just go for regular clippings, but now.. I think it would be a better option to remove his teeth than to take the risk of him dying from having too much anesthesia pumped into him. I still need some time to think this through before making the final decision on the operation, and also I need to check with the vet again whether he has performed tooth removals before. I forgot to ask him earlier.. I was kinda shaken when I heard that there's a likely possibility of death

 

[swanlake]

herm... i am going to add to this thread if you don't mind..

fiona has teeth problems too. here are some pics i just took: (that took forever cause fee doesn't like sitting still/being held)

she actually is going in next week for a trim. before i got her, the teeth problems were noticed. i don't know if she got a trim, but since she had just been abandoned, the vet thought diet might be a factor. we now know that is not the case. probably around two weeks when we had her, i think she somehow ground down her teeth because they were considerably shorter than when we got her. now they have grown back, and i can tell they are bugging her because she is chewing on anything and everything. it has not effected her eating though.

i took her to the vet this past week for a kinda teeth check-up. the vet i saw i had never seen before. i asked her if regular visits would be nessisary and she said maybe. she said that sometimes after regular visits the teeth are kinda, 'trained' and grow back slower or something like that. it seemed kinda weird to me, as i had never heard of this. any insight on this?

 

[slavetoabunny]

We had a bunny come into rescue with bad teeth. Our dental vet wanted to try correcting the teeth with frequent trims before resorting to pulling the teeth. Over a 4 week period he did frequent trims, but it didn't work and he ended up extracting the teeth. This bunny's problems were rather severe and it may work with a less severe problem. I'm wondering if it would of succeeded if the trimming treatment had been conducted over a longer period of time.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

Somebunny I almost lost Sooty under anesthesia, not because he had alot in him but i guess the type they used, and he wasnt intubated. They were, THANK GOD, able to bring him back but he never had his teeth removed and they were able to only grind the back ones down before he almost died. Sooty is pretty good and calm with getting his teeth trimmed but if it ever came down to him being sedated every 3-6 weeks i would seriously consider having them removed. Dallas, Jadeicing's bunny , has all his teeth removed , front and back, and thier are a few other rabbits that have had thier teeth removed that dofine. If it ever come time for it to have to be done then i will do it but i have to take him to a different place that has a wider variety of anesthesia so this doesnt happen again, but for now we clip and he doesnt need to be sedated.



For those of you with buns whos teeth arent that bad you could try things like mixed hay, the different textures wear down the teeth in different ways and with different hays they chew differently which helps in the wearing down of the teeth.

With Sooty i adopteed him from the humane society, he was left at the curb side with the trash so my thinking is that he didnt have proper diet or vet care for years before i got him and his teeth are bad . I thought maybe with some time with me with proper food, teeth trimmings, and toys and such it would get better but his was too bad at this point in his life.



I wonder the same thing Slavetoabunny, with teeth that are just slightly misalligned if frequent trimmings, proper diet and things like that if it would correct itself, or not be as severe?





Here is my Sexy Sooty buns before he got his teeth done for the first time after his nueter. They were really bad, and his one top tooth literarly grows across the front of his mouth keeping the other tooth from coming down, so he goes about every 3-4 weeks to get it done.

Here they are after, he is such a trooper with it. i wish they could have been removed originally but we deal with it.

He eats nnormally we make some adjustments like with carrots i cant give him thick chunk carrots i have to either get the thin sticks, like slivers, or cut them up for him.

 

[12354somebunny]

Wow, Fran, that must have been so scary for you! I can't imagine losing any of my bunnies.. I'd go crazy

The vet also mentioned about the possibility of Hans' teeth re-aligning themselves properly after the trim. We're going to push hay and chew toys.. as it is, Hans gets a mix of grass hay (orchard, timothy, brome) and lots of chew toys. I don't see him chewing on his toys... maybe because his incisors get in the way.. we'll see how it goes after he gets them trimmed.

I'm going to take it one step at a time.. send Hans for the trim on Tuesday, then see how he does after that.. I hope and pray that by some miracle, his teeth will be back to normal.. but I also realise the chances of that are quite slim.

If he requires regular trims.. then I hope he can get used to it and be calm when it's done, so that we don't have to sedate him.

If he required sedation, and his teeth needs to be trimmed frequently.. then I will seriously consider removing them. But then again, I'm not sure if any vet can do that for me here but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Mummel and Swanlake, all the best with your bunnies' teeth Keep us posted on how they're doing.

 

[Mummel]

Hi Everyone,

seems like a lot more bunnies with teeth problems chimed in

Cookie had hers trimmed yesterday at "Island Exotic Vet. Clinic" in Huntington, LI (NY). I would very much recommend them. They handled my bunny (Cookie) very gently.

Her teeth are not to bad just the underbite is severe. They recommended to give her a year and trim if needed since it might better, especially on a good diet and with chew toys. Otherwise they might want to pull the front teeth. Back teeth are fine btw. They only use anesthesia in very severe cases since frequent use is very bad for a bunny.

Cookie is dealing with it well and eating just fine. I think what bothered her most was the travel in 'cold' weather (60F)..I tried to keep her warm but when we got home she still spend the rest of te evening next to the heater in the bathroom .

Good luck to your bunnys somebunny and swanlake, keep us updated!

Emi

 

[JadeIcing]

Yup for anyone who looks at this thread at a later date, Dallas has no teeth because they were so bad. He also had a brother from the same litter, who also had all his teeth removed.

Ringo and Wyatt both had slightly overgrown teeth that with hay have been kept in control.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

JadeIcing wrote:

Yup for anyone who looks at this thread at a later date, Dallas has no teeth because they were so bad. He also had a brother from the same litter, who also had all his teeth removed.

Ringo and Wyatt both had slightly overgrown teeth that with hay have been kept in control.

Well at a later date they will have to contact me cause i will have Dallas by then,lol. I couldnt resist it sorry,lol.

 

[JadeIcing]

Luvmyzoocrew wrote:

JadeIcing wrote:

Yup for anyone who looks at this thread at a later date, Dallas has no teeth because they were so bad. He also had a brother from the same litter, who also had all his teeth removed.

Ringo and Wyatt both had slightly overgrown teeth that with hay have been kept in control.

Well at a later date they will have to contact me cause i will have Dallas by then,lol. I couldnt resist it sorry,lol.

People with lops beware this lady is nutso.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

JadeIcing wrote:

People with lops beware this lady is nutso.

ha ha ha I seriously laughed out loud the kids asked what i was laughing at,lol. I am nuts and have never made any appologies about it,lol.