Lionhead rabbit with teary eye

Question
I just recently bought the most adorable grey lionhead rabbit.  
I have had it for about two weeks and I have noticed that its right eye is starting to be teary.  There is no colored discharge just wet around his eye. He is active, eats good and drinks good with no other symptoms.  Is this normal?

Thank you so much.

Melanie

Answer
Dear Melanie,

Lionhead rabbits are adorable, but they are notorious for having dental-related health problems, such as malocclusion.  A teary eye means the tear duct is blocked.  This could be due to skin cell and/or bacterial residue in the duct, or it could be that the duct is already abnormally narrow due to dental anatomy that's not normal for a rabbit, and he's already having problems.

He needs to be examined by an experienced rabbit vet who can do a deep oral exam of his molars (to check for spurs or other problems) and possibly head radiographs to see if his tooth roots impinge on his tear duct area too much, as per the information here:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/sneezing.html

This isn't a life-threatening problem, but it can be chronic, and cause irritating hair loss on his face that you'll have to control with warm, moist compresses and application of soothing creams.

I hope that the vet will find this is just a temporary problem that can be solved with ointment or even a tear duct flush.  But in Lionhead rabbits (and lops and dwarfs), you can expect problems like this to recur, unfortunately.

You can find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Hope this helps.

Dana