RE: Netherland Dwarf Dental Problems

[kirstyol]

As you know our Bramble has recurrent spurs too (I still find it so weird that our same named buns are so similar) I cannot imagine being able to check his teeth ourselves even with the correct equipment.

Our Bramble is nearly three now and has had a few dentals, started off every three months and we are now at nine months since his last one. All we have done is change his hay a few times till we found one he would eat a lot of and brought our second bun home, we have made no other changes but the new hay seems to have made a massive difference.

The problem with our Bramble is that he is sort of an all or nothing kinda guy, he literally goes from eating normally one day to eating nothing the next so its very hard to keep an eye on him, regular checks of his teeth really are all we can do. But you do get to know the signs over time, for example Bramble never ever lies in his litter box. When he lies in the litter box he is unwell, he goes to the vet and 99% of the time the problem is his teeth.. I also keep some metacam and ranitidine in the house but obviously this will depend on your vet if they are willing to prescribe them prophylactically, if he gets unwell at night we try a dose of each to see if he eats and if he does we wait till the morning to take him in The way our vet looks at it is we know our bun, we have been dealing with this for almost three years and we know the signs and are sensible enough to give him a dose of meds and if there is no improvement take him in, we also keep a pouch of rescue remedy (like critical care) so we can feed him if needs be to try and keep him going overnight. Don’t get me wrong I would take him to the animal hospital if I had to, but would rather he seen his own vet if at all possible