Anyone have scheduled grindings?

[Wick & Fable]

After reviewing Wick’s dental history, it’s been decided that his dental grindings will be scheduled every 5 weeks. I was wondering how many owners have rabbits with scheduled dental grindings, and whether adhering to it presented difficulties, whether it be because the appt was too late/too soon, or if the fixed schedule ended up changing a lot.

Wick has an underbite (bottom incisors in front of top incisors) and his incisors don’t meet correctly horizontally-speaking/jaw is mis-aligned (top two teeth not lined up with bottom two teeth), so these two factors together lead to uneven chewing = molar spurs & sharply-slanted bottom incisor sanding. It’s not really preventable. To give a scope of severity, if his bottom incisors are sanded to be straight, they will sand to be crooked again within a week. After hearing this at yesterday’s grinding the vet ground down his incisors as low as possible. Poor Wick couldn’t eat large pieces of veggies or his whole treat this morning. I had to break it up for him. He’s not sad or anything, just comes over now and says “Hey, I can’t eat this.”.  Wick is about 1 year and 2 months old and had his 6 molar grinding yesterday, where after discussing items like incisor removal, we decided the best bet would be 5w interval grindings.

Any thoughts/insights are appreciated!

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Dface]

My bridge baby Sampras had misaligned front teeth (crooked and underbite) his were every 4 weeks (at a stretch )
I opted for surgery to get them removed. Even talking about it now I get upset-they messed up and cut him open for a female neuter-stitched him up poorly and then operated on his mouth. It nearly killed him.

One tooth grew back. So we had to go back to the grindings anyway.
With wicks medical history I wouldn’t put him under anesthetic to get them extracted. I regret doing it a lot.

After he still needed them every 3-4 weeks to keep comfortable. However I did asses it myself-sometimes it grew faster or seemed less comfortable I’d get it done sooner, and some months it was not a bother for longer so it wasnt an exact thing for us

With no front teeth I just chopped food and treats for him cause otherwise he just made a mess(he used his one tooth like a spear to stab his food and run away.)
I think we often project and feel sorry for bunnies when they don’t for themselves-he doesn’t see it as a “poor me I can’t do this”, it’s more of a puzzle they have to solve;wicks solution seems to be to use the human :p
Clever boy.

[Wick & Fable]

Thank you for sharing your experience dface. I’m sorry to hear of such an unfortunate operation error… Yes, the past two days have been an adjustment for Wick and I, making treats smaller and veggies smaller as well. I do feel assured this is a good choice, despite the frequency. Wick does very well with the grindings, usually getting better in a few hours, so this does seem best.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Muchelle]

K has a different dental situation (congenital spurs) and we seem to have it under control as of right now thanks to diet and the very scary extraction of 2 molars he had in 2015.
Before that he had scheduled burrings. We set the appointments every 6 weeks, but with the agreement that if he did “that thing” with his mouth (he used to make a specific set of tongue/mouth movements when the spurs started bothering him) then he had to get immediate attention. If not, the appointment would be pushed to a later date.

[I still remember about Sampras…. grrr that story still makes me mad!!]

[Wick & Fable]

How are congenital spurs different than typical molar spurs?

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Muchelle]

He just has genetically crooked and misshaped teeth, there was no diet that could fix it. So we had to extract the two worse teeth and pray to all the gods that they wouldn’t grow back up. They didn’t, and now he has crooked teeth but without further spurs so far and hopefully he stays this way!

[Wick & Fable]

Ahh I see! Praises they didn’t grow back indeed! nothing wrong with some crooked teeth for nomming food, haha.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Muchelle]

The whole “genetically screwed teeth” thing made me really sad at first, cause K is a beauty and has an excellent character. A friend that breeds show rabbits offered to try and have babies with him and one of her non-show does so that I could keep one or two of his babies when he’d be gone… but genetics this bad are a no-no T_T

[plz mods don’t ban me lol no breeding here]

[Lord Bonton]

My mini lop Gimly goes in every 8 weeks to have two of his molars trimmed due to spurs(one on top, one on bottom). Hes been going in for about 2 years now and gets blood work done once a year as well. The vet said this is due to having a slight jaw misalignment. Hes a trooper about it though and is back to eating his chow and some hay that same evening. We give him metacam once a day for three days post procedure to help with any pain he might be having. Usually hes back to his normal silly self next morning.

[Author]

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