baby rabbit incisor broken, and potential malocclusion?

Question
Dear Dana,

I check my 9 week old baby rabbit's teeth regularly and this morning noticed that one of his incisors has been broken (now about a third of the normal size). I am not too worried as he appears to be eating normally and hope that it will regrow. A secondary (potential) problem I noticed recently is that his remaining incisor is protruding very slightly about 3 millimeters behind his bottom tooth (he is only a small Netherland Dwarf). This wasn't really the case when we bought him home, roughly 2 weeks ago. I would like to know if this is normal in baby/adult rabbits or does it count as a malocclusion that will get worse with time? Also, should I be more concerned about his broken tooth?

Many thanks,

Selina

Answer
Dear Selina,

Ordinarily, a broken tooth isn't really a big deal.  But in your baby bunny's case, fixing things now could possibly prevent permanent malocclusion as he gets older and his bones gain their permanent growth.

There's a possibility that the accident that broke the one incisor also may have knocked the other one a little bit out of alignment.  We've seen this happen, and if the tooth is a little bit loose, then it's important to try and keep it aligned properly while the soft tissues and ligaments around it heal.

If he's this young, then I'd recommend you take him to a good rabbit vet who is very familiar with rabbit dental problems and have both incisors filed to the same length, as well as the bottoms so that they don't meet improperly.  If the bottom incisors push the tops out too far (because they are longer than normal compared to the top ones), they could exacerbate what might be just an injury-induced, temporary misalignment, and cause it to become permanent.

It's possible that he has a congenital malocclusion that is developing as his skull grows and he gets older.  We can't really know at this point.  But even in some cases of congenital malocclusion, if you really keep after the teeth early on, have them filed so that the misaligned teeth don't continually meet against each other in the wrong way and continue to promote the misalignment as the bunny grows, then a serious condition can possibly be avoided in the future--or at least made a little less severe.

This doesn't always work if there is a severe congenital malocclusion.  But the fact that you've been checking so often and have only now noticed this does suggest to me that the crooked teeth *could* be because he whacked into something, and that if you gently massage the teeth into their normal position, you might be able to promote their normal regrowth, and allow the soft tissue holding the teeth in place to heal with the teeth in a normal position.

You can find a good rabbit vet to help you here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

I hope this helps.

Dana