| Rabbit Dentistry It is not that uncommon for rabbits to form malocclusion, also known as “wolf teeth” and “buck teeth”. This is when the upper front teeth and sometimes the lower bottom front teeth, grow abnormaly. We have seen teeth on rabbits so long in length, they looked like a sabertooth tiger. This is partly genetic, meaning if one of the parents have it, it will be passed onto their offspring. They can also get it from chewing on the wire and snagging their teeth on it. Rabbit’s front teeth grow 1/4-1 inch per month, so they’re always trying to finding ways to gnaw on things to keep them down. If you have a rabbit who likes to chew on the wire of it’s cage, it might be best to give it a block of wood to chew on instead. What is dangerous about malocclusion, is that they can get in the way of the rabbit when it is trying to eat. Sometimes the teeth get so long that they can curve around and start penetrating the inside of the mouth or growing through the cheek itself. Needless to say, if this problem is not rectified, the poor rabbit will probally die from starvation. In the 10 years I’ve had rabbits I’ve only had it happen 4 times. Once to a Harlequin, which later corrected itself as it grew back from being trimmed, once to a Rhinelander, and just recently to two Dutch. For the Dutch, neither of their parents have this problem, and both Dutch are from separate litters. We’ll be using one of these Dutch in the pictures. The way we fix our rabbits teeth when they have malocclusion is to simply “snip” the maloccusion teeth. We use cutical scissors or snips. To relieve you, there is absolutely no pain to the bunny. Rabbit’s teeth are made for gnawing, so there are no blood vessels, nerves, or nerve endings in the teeth. Cutting or trimming their teeth is the same as cutting “chalk”. Take your cutical scissors, turn them “bottoms up” and cut the offending teeth at a 90 degree right angle to the tooth for a straight cut. Cut one tooth at a time. Cut them back to normal length, and now your rabbit will be able to eat normally!! The malocclusion will probally grow back and keep reoccuring, meaning it must be retrimmed about once a month. Since this can be genetic, it is best not to be using this rabbit for breeding, as it will pass it onto the young. Another thing to watch out for is simple malocclusion, also can be called “trap teeth”. This is where both the top and bottom teeth meet head on, with no overlaping of the top teeth going over the bottom teeth. This is a common thing to see while the rabbit is young, and many breeders will count these rabbits out of their breeding program because of it, not realizing that as they mature they can grow out of it. Simple malocclusion and malocclusion are ARBA disqualifications from competion for all breeds. |
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