The Genetics of Teeth Problems - some questions

[TinysMom]

First of all - the breeder I was talking to this week is NOT a member of this forum at all - so no witch hunting - ok?

I was talking to a breeder about some rabbits they had and they mentioned that two of the bucks were non-showable because their teeth sorta bent backwards....and a third buck had butting teeth that probably would align themselves with a trimming - but not sure yet. The breeder wasn't sure if this was genetic issues or they had been chewing on the cage.

The comment was made of "Well, that is a breeding I wouldn't do again because apparently the bloodlines aren't a good match and that caused the problem..". In other words - this one combination caused the teeth problems....and that is it.

But from my understanding - in order to get teeth that are bad - assuming it is not from chewing on cage bars, accidents, etc. - the rabbit must get the genes for bad teeth from BOTH parents...in other words - both parents carry the bad teeth gene (Or whatever you call it).

Now when I had bad teeth pop up in lionheads - I never bred the parents again - not only to each other - but to anyone else. I also never bred any offspring again (from those parents) because while those offspring might be ok - I felt like they might be carriers.

Is my understanding of this correct? Are there instances where you can get bad teeth (genetically) - but have it be a situation where you could use the buck and/or doe again? (This person was saying that the parents could be bred again - just not together).

I'd like to understand this better.

EDITED TO ADD: This was not about lionheads either - I know I've mentioned recently about wanting to get back into lionheads.....but this was a different breed and situation. Since I named breeders I want to work with for lionheads (if/when I get back into them)- I don't want folks to think that those breeders are the ones I'm talking about - cause they aren't!

 

[whaleyk98]

The way I understood it was be careful when you combine two different lines cause you might get problems such as teeth that dont line up and stuff...am I wrong?

 

[CoolWaterRabbitry]

I have a dwarf hotot with tooth problems, bottoms are in front of the top. Now I didn't check him at the show when we bougth him (I know :X) But from the breeder's standpoint it was not genetics, it was cage pulling.

Now Dwarf Hotots are known to have the 'bulldog' shaped head and that can lead to teeth problems when their jaw and skull grow in at different rates.

Personally, I am not using this buck. The breeder is well known, and I believe she said that the parents did not have any problems, but I just don't want to spread anything into my breeding program.

Since all this started, his teeth have started to aline, but I'm not sure if they'll ever be 100%.



Anywho, I have never heard or read that you can breed parents or offspring that may have issues to other non-problematic rabbits. If two parents produced bad offspring (toothwise) but neither of them had any teeth problems themselves, how would you know which was a carrier? I mean you could breed them both to others and give it a whirl until something popped up again, but I personally would see it as a waste (lack of a better word)of time breeding.

If that makes sense lol

 

[pamnock]

I had picked that brain of a geneticist who has published studies and written articles on malocclusion. He said that malocclusion is very complex and not attributed to one single gene, but multiple factors affecting bone and teethgrowth. Jaw growth is highly inheritable and has been used historically to trace family lines - some traits can be carried and passed on by one parent only.

Very interesting article "The Heritability of Malocclusion": http://jorthod.maneyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/2/103

 

[lelanatty]

There was this one rabbit this one time that bred with this other rabbit that had bad teeth... Ok so here's my little personal story on this - which I hope will answer your question.

A friend of mine let their doe rabbit out to play, and there was a buckrabbit who was a free range rabbit with bad teeth. Luckily all parties involved were ND's. So along came 3 babies as a surprise on December 19th, 2008, abouttwo weeks after their mother won BOS at her very first show. None of the babies had bad teeth. She was a chocolate otter and he was a chestnut, again we were ever so lucky. We ended up with a Wooly ND chestnut buck, a blue otter normal fur buck, and a black otter normal fur doe. The two bucks are now gone, but the doe got to stay with her mother andboth have now come into my care. The black otter doe has had her first litter for me, and none of them have bad teeth either.

I think youare correct about rabbits being "carriers" of these bad genes, and that they are a recessive. I have had no problems with the offspring of this rabbit with bad teeth, but if they were to be crossed with just the right other rabbit, the problem would show up again.