Brown rabbit teeth

Question
QUESTION: Hi Dr. Krempels,

I just have a general question regarding brown teeth. Is that something
that could be due to age or possibly just related to diet.
I volunteer at an animal shelter and am the resident rabbit person - I.e.
the only volunteer who has rabbits, and hence have been sort of
upgraded to "rabbit expert".
Yesterday we took in a female stray. Her front teeth look fairly brown.
Based on that and the kind of "oldish appearance" around her eyes (I.e.
nothing definite she just kind of seems to have a senior air about her) I
thought she might be older.  So I was wondering whether the color of
the teeth could also be a result of something other than age. (I
recommended having her seen by a rabbit-savvy vet since if she's
indeed older she may have another host of problems, specially if not
spayed. She did have a urine stained behind. I thought either due to
unsanitary cage condition or possibly something age-related ad well?)

Thanks,
Astrid

ANSWER: Dear Astrid,

I have seen many older rabbits with brown-stained teeth, and it could be related to diet, as well.  A bunny who has been living outdoors and eating lots of plant material containing tannins will often have much more staining on the teeth than one who has eaten nothing but pellets all her life.

In any case, I don't think that brown stains on the teeth by themselves are cause for concern.

Hope she finds a loving home!

Dana

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much.

I forgot to ask another question that's been on my mind recently regarding de-fleaing rabbits. Strangely enough I have yet to come across a stray rabbit that has fleas, which is rather surprising given all the stray cats we take in that almost always have fleas!

So my question is, I know the revolution dosage for adult rabbits if it was ever needed, however I do not know how a flea infested baby rabbit should be treated if ever we got those in. We recently had very irresponsible people come in with their baby rabbits asking for some sort of quick-fix help, even though they weren't willing to spend a single dime on them. I saw something brown and tiny crawling across the carrier and assumed fleas. Combing the rabbits however produced neither flea dirt nor fleas, and questioning also showed that the family had no other pets and that the babies hadn't been kept outside (so no real chance for fleas). It turned out that they had ton of roaches though. So the little crawlers must have been baby roaches.

Ok, back to the question. Whenever we take in small flea infested (cat) kittens we wash them with plain Dial soap since they are still too young to be treated with revolution. Would that be something that can safely be used on baby rabbits too? Or what kind of treatment would be recommended?

Thanks,
Astrid

Answer
Dear Astrid,

We have used Revolution successfully and with excellent results on baby rabbits, hares, and cottontails as young as two weeks of age.  The dose is the same, no matter what critter:  6mg/kg

If you have the cat/puppy solution, it's 60mg/ml, so you'll use 0.1cc per kg of body weight (which will be a tiny amount for a wee baby).  If you have the BIG DOG solution (120mg/ml), you'll use half that:  0.05cc per kg of body weight.

For a really wee baby, you might have to dilute it.  But it's pretty hard to overdose with Revolution.  As long as the blood/brain barrier is intact, the bunny shouldn't have any problems.

Hope that helps.

Dana
P.S. - I hope those jerks who let cockroaches crawl all over their bunny suffer a horrible infestation of cockroaches in their pubic hair and armpits.