Can my rabbit wear his top teeth down without bottom incisors?

[valliesmom]

Hi y'all!

About a month ago now, my darling rabbit Vallie got a pretty huge surgery where they removed part of her jawbone and 4 teeth--which included both of her bottom incisors. She hasn't been eating hay like normal since then, and I think it's because she has difficulties maneuvering it into her mouth with all those missing teeth. Since she's not grinding away at her hay, I started to get worried that her top incisors might get overgrown. I took her in for a vet visit today, just for a checkup and to talk about my concerns, and the vet said it might be a good idea to have her in in a couple months and get her top incisors removed too.

Is this my only option? My vet isn't a bunny specialist, and a lot of Vallie's treatments in the past I ended up suggesting to him first. He said that hay wasn't really necessary for Vallie anyways, as long as she's eating pellets she's fine. I guess I just wanted a second opinion from the bunny owner community, especially if anyone has any suggestions as to how Vallie can grind her top incisors down if she doesn't have lower incisors.

 

[JBun]

They'll overgrow. Regular trims or removal would be needed to prevent it from occurring. I'm not sure it will work, but you could try timothy hay cubes. Rabbits use their incisors to strip bits off, and this will help wear the incisors some. But I'm not sure your rabbit would be able to do this without the bottom incisors.

 

[valliesmom]

Jenny, once again you are my rabbit-knowledge savior. I dropped by the pet store today and grabbed some timothy hay cubes and other chewy things for Vallie to try out. I'll call the vet tomorrow and schedule the removal, but I'll keep checking out Vallie's teeth until then just in case she does manage to wear them down on her own.

 

[cwebster]

Bunnies can still eat hay without incisors, and from my limited knowledge, have read that hay is essential to prevent molar problems. If the bunny can no longer chew hay, Oxbow has two hay-based critical cares.