Buccal (Mouth) Themes

Malocclusion and Long Incisors

Malocclusion is the misalignment and eventual deformation of the teeth. It may occur due to different reasons including diet, trauma, and genetics.

Rabbit teeth are special, as they never stop growing.
Food, mainly grass and other silica-rich plants, allow for the teeth to grind and stay healthy.
Thus diets rich in soft greens and liquids can be harmful for the teeth as well as the gut.

Trauma can happen if the rabbit bites something very tough for an extended amount of time.
The Unusual Pet Vets give wire as an example.
This can damage and deform the incisors, reducing the ability for them to be filed down correctly.

Lastly, genetics can play into malocclusion.
Rabbits with shorter snouts and smaller heads (lops and dwarves) are commonly seen to have these issues. This is because they have less space in the head to fit the mouth, which can deform and lead to malocclusion.

Another thing commonly seen alongside malocclusion, especially when it goes unchecked for a very long time, are long incisors.
Due to the incisors not being able to be used correctly these grow to incredible sizes that not only are annoying but can ultimately hurt and kill the rabbit.
For example, these can break and latch on the skin, creating abscesses. They can pierce the skin in the roof or bottom of the mouth, or even other places if the growth is too big, like eyes.
These can become so deformed that the skull itself may deform, causing irreparable damage.

Depending on the size of the teeth (and the malocclusion) you may find that your rabbit must go through different procedures.
For shorter teeth, using a burr (rotatory file) may be enough to ensure they are filed and put back at a healthy length.
For longer teeth though, extracting the entirety of the incisors may be required, especially if these are in a very, very bad state.
Sometimes, as the rabbit tries to clean themselves fur gets entangled in the long teeth, something that could eventually choke the rabbit.

Thankfully, rabbits without incisors can keep living healthy happy lives if you cut their hay and greens a bit shorter!

For more information on Malocclusion, and long teeth you can visit:
The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund’s information sheet about Rabbit Dental Problems.
The Unusual Pet Vets’ page about Incisor Malocclusion.

Mild incisor misalignment - Bishops Strotford Veterinary Hospital.
Incisor malocclusion and extreme length - Avian & Exotic Animal Clinic
Anna, a rabbit with ptyalism, see how it's missing her fur - MediRabbit.

Slobbers

Slobbers, also called ptyalism in medicine, is the constant and excessive production of saliva.
This saliva drools all over the mouth to other parts of the body, like the paws.
Because the fur is wet, it loses strength, causing it to clump, break down and fall.
As the skin is also wet for most of the time, skin maceration may begin to occur.
This can make the rabbit prone to fungal and bacterial infections.
MediRabbit separates the causes of ptyalism into acute and chronic based on the time they take to develop.
Where acute (fast development) includes abscesses, pain, or tumours; and where chronic (slow development) includes things like genetic factors like the size of the tongue or position of the head, external afflictions like neurological trauma, a disease, or stress, amongst others.
There are other causes that although not considered acute or chronic they can be described as so.
One of these are dental problems, which could be chronic, and are one of the most common reasons for slobbers. For example, spurs or malocclusion can make the rabbit uncomfortable and prevent them to close their mouth, which causes their mouth to salivate.
Respiratory infection could make the rabbit breathe by the mouth, which could cause drooling.
Medication, poisons and toxins may also cause the rabbit to drool.
The easiest way to diagnose ptyalism is to touch the rabbit’s mouth and paws to see if they’re wet.
You will be able to see wet fur and if it’s been going for a while, the fur may have dropped, leaving the pink skin. This lack of fur may extend all over the mouth, the chin, and the paws.
Consider though that slobbers is a symptom of a bigger issue that must be investigated and treated.
Thus this may mean that you may also see:

General sickness symptoms (due to pain, stress, etc..);

Bad smell from mouth and/or discharge from the mouth (infections and abscesses);

Bumps or general uneven facial symmetry (abscesses, lack of teeth).;

Nasal discharge (upper respiratory tract infection);

Grinding of teeth (General pain), or;

Excess tear production (from infections).

To uncover the reason of the drooling, the rabbit may undergo a varying amount of tests, like buccal examinations, x-rays, and more, and once the cause has been detected, treatment can also vary from antibiotics, filing the teeth, pain relief, draining of abscesses, etc…
If you want to learn more about Slobbers you can always read:
MediRabbit’s Differential Diagnosis for Ptyalism.
That contains various reasons why slobbers may develop.
Vetlexicon’s page on Ptyalism – Excessive Salivation, provided by Forest Vets.

Spurs

Rabbits have a special mouth, as the teeth, both the incisors and the molars, continuously grow.
This growth is normally countered with hay and other fibre that is high in silica. This also includes grass.
Chewing on pellets can also contribute to wearing down the teeth.

Sometimes, though, due to malocclusion and how the rabbit chews, some parts of the molars are more worn-out than others, creating spurs.

Spurs are overgrown, not worn molar protrusions that become sharp and spiky, projecting sideways to the cheeks (buccal spurs), the tongue (lingual spurs) or both.
Due to their overgrowth, these can pierce into the flesh, making the rabbit feel uncomfortable and causing pain.

This of course reduces the quantity of food your rabbit eats.

When spurs harm the tongue and cheeks, these can be gravely lacerated and become infected creating abscesses.
We thus understand that a mixture of pain, infections and possible abscesses, and difficulty to close the mouth can cause general sickness symptoms, and eventually, death.
Another issue of spurs is that these can break and latch on the skin, which creates similar issues.

Spurs will naturally and eventually become an issue with all rabbits, but deciding when to act to eliminate these should be something easy to do, as you should be visiting your vet for a check-up yearly.
The vets are the ones that can diagnose and treat your rabbit.

Treatment consists of filing up the spurs, usually with a burr (rotatory file).
Changes in diet can be made to ensure the spurs are reduced naturally, but this will take a long time.

In a last-case scenario, you could try and file the spur spikes and round them yourself with a small nail file or straight nosed dental drill, but that is greatly discouraged as it can harm your rabbit, it can harm you, it is not definitive, and it is difficult to do.
It is also uncommon for the average rabbit owner to own a straight nosed dental drill, as these are specialist tools for dentists.

If you want to learn more about spurs, you can access:
Exotic Vet’s page on Spurs.
The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund’s page on Rabbit Dental Problems.

Buccal and lingual spurs - Holly Hollands Rabbitry.
Close-up of a lingual spur - The Finchley Vet.
Upper and inferior mandible of a rabbit - VIVO Pathophysiology.
Baby Soap eating hay like a good boy.

Teeth

The teeth in rabbits are very special, so special that these differentiate them from rodents, creating the family Lagomorpha.
This is because the structure of the mouth and especially that of the incisors is different.

Rabbit mouths consist of a set of various parts: 22 molars and premolars, also called cheek teeth, divided for each side of the mouth, the diastema, a gap that divides the cheek teeth and the incisors, the 2 mandibular incisors, the ones at the bottom, and 4 maxillary incisors, two of those, called peg teeth, being behind the main frontal ones.
This makes a maximum of 28 teeth.

When a rabbit closes its mouth, the two mandibular incisors should fit right between the peg teeth and the maxillary incisors, which allows them to easily and quickly cut plant matter.

The molars in the other hand work by rubbing against each other to break up the fibres and disperse them.

You may already know that rabbit teeth grow constantly, but rabbits, just like us, also go through a change of teeth.

Rabbits grow their teeth at around 20 days old and before adulthood they lose their 16 deciduous milk teeth, that are later replaced by the 28 permanent ones.
I could not find any reliable information to when this is.
Adulthood may refer to sexual maturity (4-6 months) or any other ambiguous time frame.

Just like with humans, “rabbit health enters through mouth”, as they have to almost constantly be eating food and filling up their stomach, and if the teeth are deformed, damaged or causing damage, the rabbits’ health can easily deteriorate.

So we can understand that rabbit buccal health is fully dependant on what they bite, whether that is their food, their toys, or their environment.

There are a lot of issues with teeth that could develop and that are prone to occur.
For example, molar spurs are commonly seen in all rabbits.

Other issues though are a bit more complicated and hard to see. That does not mean that they cannot greatly affect the rabbit. Malocclusion and teeth overgrowth can be very damaging for rabbits, to the point where bad cases can kill them in different ways.
There are also other issues caused by teeth but not necessarily affecting the teeth, like with snuffles, where the teeth can aggravate or be the determining factor to cause the infection.

If you want to learn more about rabbit teeth and the possible issues you can visit:
Sarah Kolb’s entry on Rabbit Dentistry for Today’s Veterinary Nurse.
The Bunny Hub’s page on How Many Teeth Rabbits Have.
The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund’s page on Rabbit Dental Problems.

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