I’m glad to hear Alfie’s making it through and his teeth are getting addressed! My viewpoint, while biased from my experiences, I think can offer you with something to chew on. I’ve never seen dental grindings as being a risky endeavor because Wick’s vet never expressed it as being such. It’s very routine — we go in, confirm dental discomfort, and they take Wick away for 15 minutes to have it done while I wait in the lobby.

If you find a vet who’s experienced in molar spur grindings, Alfie’s size should not be too much of an issue. Alfie has been through some endeavors, but if he goes in healthy as can be for the grinding, it should be relatively simple if the vet is experienced with doing dentals. Wick had his first grinding at 5 months old, and he was quite tiny and in the middle of oral/shot antibiotic treatment for his URI. He’s less than 1kg now at 1 year + 3 months old, so you can imagine he was quite small at 5 months old. Wick’s had seven grindings to date, and he’s bounced back after every single one within 1-2 hours after it’s done.

To an extent, spurs can be taken care of through hay eating (getting to your question about metacam management); however, if it’s a genetic predisposition (commonly found in netherland dwarves and small breeds), hay consumption will not be enough to prevent the spurs. Wick has an underbite and a crooked jaw, so he grows spurs on his top molars which do not bother him too much, but once a spur comes up on his bottom right, that’s when we need to go in because he shows signs of discomfort. His mouth anatomy makes it literally impossible for him to grind down those spurs effectively as they grow. He’s now on a regimen on a teeth grinding every 5 weeks. We also get his bottom incisors ground down as low as possible because they grind to become slanted, due to his irregular chewing movement.

It’s your decision based on what you observe about Alfie and his bounce-back. Wick is very resilient consistently through anesthesia and medical treatments, so I know just having him get it done is not a health risk, but I know that’s not the case for other rabbits. It may be worth getting it done once now and observing whether the spurs come back in months down the road, making them more prominently as spurs which need human-intervention to be dealt with. Once every 5 weeks is a very accelerated regimen. A lot of owners with chronic dentals go in once every few months or once a year more typically. Wick’s just needy.

Feel free to ask any additional questions!

Wick typically gets one dose after the procedure while at the vets and doesn’t need anymore after that. Wick’s vet always asks as a platitude if I need more Metacam, but we never do. The only time we had to get additional follow up was after Wick’s 4th grinding I think, where I had to set an actual appointment to Wick’s vet’s shock. It ended up that the grinding irritated a tooth infection, so Wick was not feeling so hot after the grinding. That was resolved once identified though with antibiotics. It’s not a common occurrence.

Yes, if Alfie’s jaw is misaligned, it’s possible he can only grind it so far without medical intervention. Wick’s crooked jaw is apparent by misaligned front/bottom incisors, so that is a good indicator that genes could cause this to be reoccurring.