Image: Rabbit teeth. (Coquet Vets. All rights reserved.)
What’s Inside Your Rabbit’s Mouth?
Rabbit teeth are designed for chomping and chewing. Rabbits are herbivores, which means they will never eat meat. Rabbit’s mouths have a combination of incisors, molars, and premolars.
Their teeth are curved, and enamel is only found on the front surface of the teeth. The back surface of their teeth is coated in softer dentin, which means the front surface wears down much slower than the back. Your rabbit’s two front teeth – known as the anterior incisors – can grow up to 12cm a year. The vast majority of dental problems concern these teeth, as they’re the most prone to overgrowing and other problems.
Rabbits are thorough chewers, and their technique involves highly organised tongue movements combined with up to 120 jaw movements per minute.
Because of the nature of their jaw muscles, rabbits chew both vertically and horizontally. This is enough to keep their teeth in good shape – so long as their teeth are in perfect alignment.
Malocclusion
Beyond a poor diet, a leading cause of overgrown teeth in rabbits is malocclusion. This is where poor teeth alignment lessens the effectiveness of chewing. Many things can cause malocclusion, but most cases have more than one underlying cause. It can be a combination of infection, genetic issues, and even mild trauma.
Image: Rabbit teeth. (Coquet Vets. All rights reserved.)
A single misaligned tooth is all it takes to throw off a rabbit’s entire bite and chew. As a result, if left unchecked, even small dental issues can soon escalate. But unfortunately, most rabbit owners only notice that there’s a problem once the rabbit’s front teeth have become overgrown. By this point the problem might already be critical, so it’s important to be on the lookout for other early warning signs, such as weight loss, or a tendency for food to fall from your rabbit’s mouth.
Regular trips to the vet will help, and we offer free dental checks all year round so please call us and get your rabbit booked in on 01665 252 250. The vet will discuss all options from diet to dental treatment.
We already have articles on rabbit diet, so please read these as diet is very important to good dental care. You can them in our news archive section.
Image: Sarah working on Belle’s teeth. (Coquet Vets. All rights reserved.)
Belle, a nine-year-old English lop, was in a few weeks ago as she was a little off food. Upon examination Emily noticed she had some sharp points digging into the gums, which are called spurs. The vet, Sarah, burred the sharp teeth to prevent any further damage to the gums. Belle was seen a few days later and she is now eating well and has put on a bit of weight.
Whilst rabbits are not part of the Dental Month Promotion during February, if you are in our Coquet Pet Club, rabbits receive 10% off dental procedures all year round. Find out more here >>
