Something to ponder from my vets.

I took Poppy dog for her boosters today but as always happens whenever I set foot in the vets the conversation quickly detours to rabbits, regardless of what animal I have taken for consultation!

We ended up having a chat about diet and how a good varied diet from a young age can limit the potential for gastric and digestive problems in later life which naturally led to a conversation about teeth....the bane of most rabbit owners life. Anneke said that the majority of the dental rabbits which make up her practice are infact house rabbits! Queue a discussion about the reasons for this, and we came up with two points:

1. Many house rabbits do not have as wide an access to hay as those living in hutches because it tends to be messy, most indoors rabbits are bedded on fleece, towels and newspaper whereas a lot of outdoor rabbits are bedded in hay and straw and literally surrounded by forage.

2. Owners of indoor rabbits are more likely to overfeed them pelleted food or muesli because they are guilt-tripped when confronted by a empty bowl and are more likely to refill it on demand rather than at set times like an outdoor rabbit owner. Especially to pacify a noisey & restless rabbit (I have been guilty of this a few times with Juno between the unearthly hours of 3-5am).

Can anyone think of any other reasons which might explain these statistics . I am of course not suggesting that all keepers of indoor rabbits (I've had several house bunnies myself) are prone to over indulgence or sacrifice their rabbits diet to protect their carpet but we know it does happen with some. Also makes me wonder what the stats are like between obese inside & outside bunsters.

I can certainly see why this would happen. We are very careful to keep daisy eating at least 70 - 80% hay but it does get absolutely everywhere!! ive even been known to turn up at work with it in my hair!

There is a constant battle but luckily we know how important this is for him. I can definately beleive though that the majority of houses bunnies dont get this because of the mess!

I think that quite a few foods claim to be "complete" too which would lead you to beleive that you dont need hay too......theres just not enough education out there!

quality of hay comes to mind.from switching from soft to Stalky/Coarse. hay
Connie teeth been alot better.1 dental in about 9mths and as you know she an outsider ??? I appreciate the mess it does make even outside
statistics i think it can affect both lots of buns
So how many HH house bunnies are out there needing regular dental s

I'd never thought of that before. I've been on such a steep learnng curve with bertie and what he eats now is very different to a year ago, and a lot different to when we first had him.

I think that the potential to feed them too many pellets/museli is a valid point, and also the hay being messy leading to too little is likely. This is where the experience of other rabbit people comes in so handy- I would never have known just how important hay & forrage as the majority of their diet is.

Berts has no cage but 4 hay spots in the flat: 1 lot in each of the rooms he goes in, on floor cushions to keep it in 1 place. He has a trough by both litter trays as well, and we don't overfeed him veg or pellets, so he eats loads of it now, but it wasn't always like that. I think the psychology of having them as an indoor pet can make you treat them differently, and they do have 'that look' that makes you feel ery guilty

The only other thing I can think of would be a lack of chewing materials or replacements for chewing skirtings etc. Some will naturally chew anything in the house they can get their teeth into. We've had that. It took a lot of effort to train him not to do it. every time he did, we'd ring a cow bell near him, then give him a stick to chew instead, but it was a long time before he got the message. he's a lot better these days, but he has loads of things to chew. I sit with him every day and he chomps his way through a willow stick or 2 that I hold, he has cardboard boxes dotted around the place and lots of willow chew things etc.

If we'd just stopped him chewing the fixtures and fittings etc, and gave him not a lot else to chew instead, I guess that could lead to teeth probs as well as/in conjunction with the points your vet raised.

Do you think it also possible that indoor buns aren't jaw checked as often? I would imagine if I had an outdoor bun I'd be more vigilant of doing routine jaw line checks, as i wouldn't be living with the bun to be able to tell so quickly if something wasn't right? Just a thought..

I'm not sure about the jaw line checks as I personally think I find problems faster with my indoor rabbits than my outdoor ones as I spend more time observing them and also petting them, which tends to be when I notice lumps and bumps.

Katie I think you have a good point with the complete foods and many owners simply do not seem to grasp the idea that hay is an essential part of the diet and not 'bedding'. This is something I believed with my first rabbit as a child, though I did everything wrong with her and she is my longest living bunny! As with many things it is vastly down to a major lack of education.

I guess many outdoor bunnies have access to alot of natural forage, grass, wood to chew etc, and its so natural, so makes sense. when i let the bunnies out to free range pebbles quite often starts gnawing at the fallen apple branches and they eat so much grass, and you wouldnt get that inside.

I guess what im trying to say is, if a bun is inside you are creating their habitat yourselves, so while its not impossible or hard to prevent it, to a new or inexperiences bunny ownercould find its harder if they are inside.............?

make any sense at all?!

In terms of the hay:

My boyfriend does not understand the hay thing! Hippo goes through hay about 5 times faster than Brynn which means leaving significantly more hay in the cage at any given time. The bf just wants to give them a small amount so that it doesn't get everywhere. His rationale is that as long as they have hay they eat it; thus we should only give them a designated amount. Obviously his logic is not only ignored but heatedly shot down. Yet, I think that that is what a lot of rabbit owners think.

People, like my silly man, need to understand that rabbits, like horses and cows, are grazing animals. Essentially their purpose on this earth is to eat and be eaten. When we bring these animals into our homes we obviously alleviate the "be eaten" part, but we can't take away the instinct or the need for them to graze!

I've only ever kept rabbits indoors (except the first 8 weeks or so, she moved in after her spay and stayed in ). Sadly for my first 3 years of keeping rabbits I just didn't realise the importance of fibre either for teeth or digestion, it's only in the last 18 months or so the realisation regarding keeping guts moving and teeth worn down has made me change the way they are kept - drastically.

Of my original three rabbits Bungee-Bun had badly maloccluded incisors so she was definitely going to need regular dentals whatever I did. I probably misunderstood the vets (or they talked rubbish?) and my emphasis was on fibrous green food rather than hay I'd read that they needed constant supply of food - so to me that meant the museli - I did LOADS of reading but sadly the books I read were rubbish or misleading. She did eat a fair bit of hay bless her but just how much difference it made in her case I don't know.

Scrat was my second bun, again she always had loads of museli (Supa Fruiti, about ?8% fibre, the worst choice possible!) She wasn't a good hay eater, and had a very sweet tooth. She never had a dental but she died at 3 1/2 years old and I do wonder all this time after whether she needed a dental (vets I used at that time were useless, only I didn't know it).

Artie was the other member of the original trio, the only one still with me. He's always eaten loads of hay. From the early days he's had a plastic pet bed filled with hay and he munches whenever he feels whilst in bed. Despite being a lop with a flat face he's never needed a dental (5 years old) and I'm told he has really good teeth.

Rudy needed a dental shortly after I got him - I adopted him at 1 year 4 mths old and he'd previously been a house rabbit - he's not needed a dental since (18mths) and again I've been told his teeth are really good - seems his diet in his previous home could have played a part.

When I was running HH rescue we took in a lot of rabbits that needed a dental during neutering but never needed one again thereafter (to my knowledge) and the majority of these were dietary.

I use to get lots of buns handed in with their hutches & cages and generally you could tell instantly the ones with dietary problems just from the state of the housing when they arrived....no hay, muesli in overflowing bowls, pooey bottoms.....you get the idea

Do outdoor buns tend the eat their hutches as well?

This thread has been really useful The mess thing is a real problem for some people. Paul hates it and I have to keep on top of it, or it just looks like a manger in 1/2 a day!

I'm thinking that there is a market for a big perspex open box, with a cat-flap stylee door filled with hay for indoor buns

Jay wrote:
I'm thinking that there is a market for a big perspex open box, with a cat-flap stylee door filled with hay for indoor buns

I'll have one please

Tink and Roo are in a NIC grid pen (big pen, no free-ranging) with the carpet on the floor of it sculptured round so that it goes up the walls about 9" ... despite that we still have hay everywhere

Jay wrote:Do outdoor buns tend the eat their hutches as well?

Yes they do but it seems to be something they grow out of as they get older. My hutches are well munched but the trio don't do it any more and they are now approaching 5 & 4 in ages.

Juno has a large dog crate with a level in and is bedded on fleece blankets, I fill her litter tray up with hay and we've run a tarpaulin under and around the crate to protect the floor and make it easier to sweep up. In her defence though she is one of the tidiest house bunnies I have had in a while and beside cleaning her litter tray I just have to hoover the fleece once a week.

Big Ears wrote:

Jay wrote:
I'm thinking that there is a market for a big perspex open box, with a cat-flap stylee door filled with hay for indoor buns

I'll have one please

I've made a prototype I'll give it a couple of days, see if he gets into using it, then make a proper one, and put photos & instructions on here!

Sooz wrote:

Jay wrote:Do outdoor buns tend the eat their hutches as well?

Yes they do but it seems to be something they grow out of as they get older. My hutches are well munched but the trio don't do it any more and they are now approaching 5 & 4 in ages.

I've never seen anywhere a recommendation that indoor buns should be kept in a hutch, when actually there's no reason not to do it..is there? If the buns have free roam time or a room to run around in, then a small house hutch to sleep/rest in, and chew could be a good preventative measure against destructive house chewing and the teeth problems your vet has indicated. TBH, when we had a cage for Berts, I did wonder about gettibg a hutch, but everybod & book said a cage, so i went with that.

Do you think it should be recommendaton for house buns too?
Could those of you that see vets regularly ask if their experience is the same re: housebunny's & teeth?

My first housebun, Bungee, lived in a pen and to try and keep the hay and poops from straying I put 8" skirting board round the floor level of the pen. She did gnaw it quite a bit, thinking back, but it was much more noticable when she was due for a dental, which apparently is not unusual as she would be craving fibre. I also made them shelves, like tables and both Bungee and Artie 'sculptured' the legs of these tables so that about half the width of them had gone

Jay wrote:
Could those of you that see vets regularly ask if their experience is the same re: housebunny's & teeth?

I'll see if I can remember. Art is seeing FHB in a couple of weeks, I'm pretty sure she will know with a lot of her patient if they are housebuns or outdoor buns.

Big Ears wrote:My first housebun, Bungee, lived in a pen and to try and keep the hay and poops from straying I put 8" skirting board round the floor level of the pen. She did gnaw it quite a bit, thinking back, but it was much more noticable when she was due for a dental, which apparently is not unusual as she would be craving fibre. I also made them shelves, like tables and both Bungee and Artie 'sculptured' the legs of these tables so that about half the width of them had gone

Humm... this is a really good idea. Brynn and Hippo have every chewable toy/house/thing imaginable yet they still rarely do any chewing. Maybe I could make something out of wood that they would like to chew and put it in their cage... Here is likely a silly question. Is there any type of wood that should or should not be used for bunnies? (Obviously untreated).

Also... did you use nails to build the shelves? Any other useful tips?

The legs on my wardrobe have been reshaped thanks to Fiver in his first year of life.

My buns get apple branches to munch on. They love them.

Sooz wrote:When I was running HH rescue we took in a lot of rabbits that needed a dental during neutering but never needed one again thereafter (to my knowledge) and the majority of these were dietary.

I use to get lots of buns handed in with their hutches & cages and generally you could tell instantly the ones with dietary problems just from the state of the housing when they arrived....no hay, muesli in overflowing bowls, pooey bottoms.....you get the idea

this is so true of the rescues we take in Sooz ...