removing incisors ?

[Ninchen]

Cinnamon has very bad front theeth.
Our vet only clips, does not grind. (Other vets are too far away for monthly visits).
This clipping has to be done every month.

I am thinking about a more permanent solution like removing the incissors
(An hours drive away we have a pet dentist with rabbit experience, but I don t know if he does incissor removal at all.)

How is a rabbits life without front theeth ?
How risky is that kind of surgery ?

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Awww that poor baby!

 

[ra7751]

Hi,

I have two rabbits that have had all six incisors extracted. It is a difficult surgery but carries about the same risk as any other procedure that requires sedation. It does require a highly skilled vet....those teeth are long and tough to extract. It is better to use injectable anesthesia if your vet has that capability. When using gas, you take them down and work for a bit and they they start to wake up so they have to be masked again....it's up and down. So injectables are much better for the rabbit. Your vet should also perform a lidocaine dental block which will control the initial pain. I usually use and anti-inflammatory such as Metacam (no more than 3 days to protect the liver)along with a narcotic aspect.....preferably Buprenex for up to 5 days. Sub-q fluids might be needed in the first couple of days. They usually start eating the second or third day....usually greens or hay. It will take them a few days to learn to use those prehensile lips to pick up pellets. The only husbandry modification post-op is that you will need to tear the veggies in small pieces since the incisors are not there to tear them. Best thing we ever did for our pair of incisor malocclusion rabbits.

Randy

 

[Ninchen]

Thanks for posting!

 

[tonyshuman]

Poor girl. Do you have an idea of why they grow so quickly? Most bunnies don't have to worry about their incisors growing like that because they constantly wear them down. Are her front four teeth all aligned with each other? Perhaps another vet could grind them, so that they meet, and this could keep them at a normal length. I think extraction of the 6 front teeth would be ok, but it's a pretty serious surgery, and I'd worry that your current vet (who doesn't sound like he's very up on his game with rabbit dental work, because you said he doesn't grind teeth) might not be the best choice for that operation.

 

[naturestee]

We've had this done twice in the last year at the local Humane Society. The most recent one, hisincisors needed trimming every week or they'd prop his mouth open and make it difficult for him to eat. He was an older bun (4-5, so not really old but not young) so I was concerned but he seemed to bounce back really quickly. I saw him a few days after the incisor removal + neuter surgery and he seemed great. Lively, eating, his usual friendliness. The other one we had done was a 5 month old bun who also did great. It's easier on the younger ones though.

I had to nag them for three months to get the surgery done on the first bun, now they've realized that no matter how friendly, beautiful, and litter trained a bun is they can't get it adopted out if it has malocclusion. So the second guy didn't have to wait as long, especially when they realized he neededincisor trimsdone every week!

One concern is if the tooth fractures while it's being removed and a tiny bit of the tooth root is left, it can grow back. I've heard that sometimes it can grow back incorrectly and cause more problems but I'm not sure how common that is.

Tonyshuman, it looks like Ninchen's bun's tooth angles slightly too far forward. A rabbit with properly-aligned teeth doesn't need anything to keep them trimmed as the top and bottom teeth rub together, but even a slight shift in tooth alignment can mean permanent malocclusion problems. As far as I'm aware, no amount of shaping from a vet will make them meet properly.

 

[Ninchen]

I have six rabbits, all get the same food.
Five of them have normal teeth, only Cinnamon has this problem.
The photo was taken at the second day he was with us!