Way to stir up some appetite? Recovering from surgery

[earthisours]

I recently moved my bunny onto Oxbow Bunny Basics T, and while he started eating it after a long stressful time, he defintely only seems to eat just barely enough. He also eats no hay, so it’s been worrisome.

But anyways, we recently discovered his lower tooth had begun to re-grow. We took him to our vet to see what he thinks, and he said it’d be best to pull it out again. The tooth was disfigured and miscoloured. Very ugly. So, that was a couple of days ago. The surgery went well, but for the first day, didn’t really eat at all.

Yesterday, I saw him nibbling a little, but barely anything, but I think it was due to me breaking up some really sugary treats (I don’t often give them to the buns, just there for these sort of cases) over the pellets, and him eating the pellets that he could taste the treat on. But he is worrying me. Is there anyways to perk up his appetite?… Should I just wait, and his appetite will pick up again? The last time he had surgery, he was on the older feed obviously, but his appetite hadn’t been affected at all.

Out of curiosity, I gave him one pellet out of the old stuff (I made the same fuss I do with treats, as to help think of that one time as a “treat.” I’m afraid of him remembering the old pellets and refusing completely the better ones again) and he just went crazy over the only little piece. Should I maybe put him back on the old feed just while he recovers? Or is it better he eats less, but of the better stuff?

X_x

On a great note, even though this is the second time it’s re-grown (the first time it regrew was soon after the surgery) and it’s been a few years, our vet didn’t charge us ANYTHING. Again. He’s so great! Only charged us the one time, the original surgery. For this and the last time, no charge! =)

 

[3crazybuns]

 I’m not by any mean’s the diet expert on here, but just reading your post had me thinking– what if you mixed some of the old and some of the new, kind of like you do with dogs when you change their food, mixing 3/4 of the old with 1/4 of the new do that for say 2 days, then slowly give more new, and less old, until your completely switched. I don’t know if this proves to work on bunnies as I’ve never tried it. Just an idea! Good Luck! 

[earthisours]

I was doing that for quite a while, the bunny simply ate ONLY the old. He literally spit out the new stuff. It was only by taking away completely the old stuff that he finally started to eat it.

[jerseygirl]

Did they actually pull the tooth this time? Were you given pain meds and antibiotics to administer?

[earthisours]

They always pull the tooth out. The thing is, some cells got left behind and it re-grew. Again. Odd how it’s only the lower one, though.

No, nothing like that. He said that since it’s the lower tooth, not the upper one that goes all the way into the skull, antibiotics aren’t necessary. He didn’t give us any the other time other, when it re-grew.

He doesn’t look to be in pain, either. He’s being his usual mischievous self, just with a loss of appetite. Hopping about and whatnot. He takes treats though, including hard treat hay pellets.

But I don’t know. =/

[jerseygirl]

Good that he’s not in pain. I had thought that sometime antibiotics can cause a loss of appetite however…if he wasn’t given them…
Hopefully they did give some at the time of surgery. I would have thought the socket area would be at risk of infection (???)
He seems stubborn about the oxbow! If it were me I would give him a few of the old pellets just as it’s important he eat, but I wouldn’t give him a whole serve. Put them in with the other pellets. One thing you could do in make a paste with the old pellets and coat the new ones with it. If he like the flavour of the old ones, he might be encourage to eat the new this way and atleast he’d get the fibre from the oxbow ones.

[Sarita]

Even though he doesn’t seem to be in pain his mouth area could be tender. I would ask the vet about some metacam to help relieve the tenderness.

It used to take my rabbit Pepe a whole week to start eating again and he only had his molars trimmed. Here’s may take on this – give him what you can to start him eating again and then start the old switcheroo.

I also think you need to start giving him the pellet slurry or critical care for awhile until the tenderness heals.

[KatnipCrzy]

I think that pain meds are needed with pulling ANY tooth.  The teeth are deeply rooted and the vet clearly is not extracting the whole root as it keeps growing back- but it still has to hurt!  Doesn’t your vet do x-rays after extracting the tooth to see if all of the root is extracted?

I would ask your vet the diet question because if this is a chronic problem and you are going to be constantly batthing teeth issues and getting him to eat pellets- it might be better to have the bunny on alfalfa based pellets that he will actually eat to maintain weight.  But the vet would need to answer that based on the physical exam that the bunny has gotten with all these procedures done.

I realize you are happy that he did not charge you for the additional surgeries- but it sounds as it was not done right the first time, or the second time…..  

[earthisours]

His appetite seems to have picked up to his usual before the surgery. Meaning, still little, but at least to the same level it was before.

The vet talked to us before we even had the FIRST teeth surgery. He clearly explained to us how the teeth grow in rabbits, and how it was extremely likely that the teeth will grow again, even after being completely extracted. It is NOT like our teeth. If you leave ONE cell, one tiny little cell to multiply, it will re-grow all over again. So, just like a cancer patient getting surgery, no matter how excellent a surgeon is, sometimes, you leave one cell behind and it starts all over again. And yes, he was given an x-ray, and it showed (like the other times, may I add) the tooth seems to have been completely extracted.

Alfalfa pellets would be a TERRIBLE idea. He has sludge problems, and moving on to timmy pellets has extremely helped him. He’s a lot happier, healthier and more active. He’s not losing any weight. It’s actually been fairly steady. He lost a bit when we first moved him onto timmy pellets before the surgery, but it’s since stablized. I will not move him back.

And no, we’re not constantly having teeth issues. The last time this came up was a few years ago, I don’t think that’s constant.

EDIT: Here, this was sort of talked about in an earlier thread. The link is here. Beka27 also provided a link with an article that talks about the chances of the teeth re-growing to be possible. Here is the link to that article here. Go to the end of the article.

[RabbitPam]

I agree with Sarita, in that he is probably just quite tender there, especially without any metacam to ease it.
By now his teeth and gums may be less sensitive so improvement is likely. Are you giving him greens at all? Possibly some softer lettuce, like green leaf, may taste good and be easier to chew at the moment.

Grinding up the pellets (the good kind) into a slurry may be good practice if he has a chronic problem. But it seems he’s recouping steadily.

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