Concerned...Malloclusion?

[HoppinHalfPints]

Hello All,

I am very concerned about one of my 30 day old Netherland Dwarf babies. Her teeth don't look right. They look to be wearing down, but the way she holds them it looks like the top incisor is behind the bottom incisor.

Am I overreacting? I have heard of cases where (in young bunnies) their teeth corrects itself. Is this true?


Thanks,

Sarah

:?

 

[AmysMacdog]

Hi Sarah. Welcome to RabbitTalk! :welcomewagon:
I'm sad to say that in my experience with French Lops is that if you can see it easily as you have described then it never improves. You can keep the bunny for a pet. It is easy to keep the teeth trimmed properly. I kept a couple of my French Lops as pets who had bad teeth and I clipped their teeth by myself. They were very good about it and always got a treat afterwards.

 

[HoppinHalfPints]

I know a breeder who told me about one of my bucks siblings. Apparently, he had such a bad bite that they were thinking of putting him down. But, the alignment of his teeth corrected itself and now he is absolutely gorgeous. Plus, they're only 30 days old. I'm really hoping this corrects itself, or maybe I'm just overreacting!

Sarah

 

[AmysMacdog]

I got my fingers crossed for you! Hopefully he'll be ok.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I hope the problem resolves itself on its own, but if not, I would caution you against rehoming her as a pet if the problem persists.

If her teeth are not trimmed on a regular basis, she will slowly starve to death, and that is not fair to her. If you are willing to commit to her care, it is one thing, but you never know what will happen once she is out of your hands.

I saw rabbits with this problem when I worked at a Veterinary hospital, and saw first hand that people cannot be counted on to clip the teeth (or pay to have it done) on a regular basis. The poor rabbits were always brought in with very long teeth for their "routine trims".

 

[HoppinHalfPints]

Oooh...That sounds horrible. I have seen Malloclusion in person, which is not pretty. If it doesn't correct, then I will have to try all the harder to find her/him a good home.

 

[ladysown]

NO.... please...if there is a Malloclusion please oh please do not rehome. Not even if it's to what you'd consider the perfect home because even perfect homes rehome rabbits, even perfect homes don't fulfill their promises.... unless of course they are perfect homes but you don't know that ahead of time.

Have you ever seen a rabbit suffering from a malloclusion? If you haven't, please educate yourself really really really well before letting anything with bad teeth out of your sight.

Having engaged in one too many rescues of the "but she's so docile and quiet" rabbit with really poor teeth (docile and quiet because she's skin and bones and doing what she has to survive) I just cringe at the thought of having rabbits with KNOWN malloclusions go into the pet world.

NOW>.. netherland dwarfs can do odd things with their teeth, but generally speaking if the top teeth are behind the bottom teeth it doesn't resolve itself well. Butting teeth can resolve itself...has to do with how the head develops.

 

[HoppinHalfPints]

I'm not even sure if s/he has malloclusion. Maybe tomorrow I will post a pic. I just have to wait till we have a working camera.

 

[Disney]

My chocolate ND buck has malloclusion, i bought him with his brother.
The brother has fine teeth. I go to the vet every month to trim them for 5 euros.
They generally prefer to take both teeth out by surgery so you dont have to visit them 12x a year, for the rest of their lives, i'd do that too but it costs 100 euro here.

 

[a7736100]

I had a wonderful buck that had bad teeth which I thought corrected itself. Since the teeth looked OK I stopped checking. The boy would always greet me and lick my hand. I was just going to breed him when one day he stopped eating. Then I was shocked to find he was just skin and bones. By the time I checked his teeth the top had reach the gum behind the bottom teeth.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

I had a wonderful buck that had bad teeth which I thought corrected itself. Since the teeth looked OK I stopped checking. The boy would always greet me and lick my hand. I was just going to breed him when one day he stopped eating. Then I was shocked to find he was just skin and bones. By the time I checked his teeth the top had reach the gum behind the bottom teeth.

And it happens really fast! Much faster than you would think...