Bunny with brown upper teeth

Question
Hi Dr. Dana. My rabbit Dutchie has always had a shorter set of uppers since I rescued him at the shelter. His teeth have never overgrown, but the uppers have always been about the same length as the pegs behind them. Recently I checked his teeth and they're looking brownish dark, dark yellow on the top. His lowers are kind of yellow but not as dark as the top. He weighs on the high end of 4 pounds, has a good healthy appetite, always eating or chewing something. I work with a rescue but he's not adoptable due to him having a kind of aggressive attitude, but he loves me all the same. He was neutered even before he came to the shelter. He's a dutch/dwarf mix. What can you tell me about his short brown teeth? His gums look like a healthy light pink, not red at all, except around the the top teeth there is a little thin halo of white and some red streaks above them. I'm not sure if that's because I was pulling them back a bit to look, but when I looked at my other rabbit's teeth they didn't look as bad as Dutchie's.

Answer
Dear Amber,

It's not really possible for me to tell without seeing Dutchie's teeth, but its' possible he suffered an injury to his upper jaw before you got him, and that the tissues there are just not as healthy and conducive to producing normal teeth as the rest of his jaw.

As long as the teeth are growing in normally, and you feel no unusual swelling of his mandible or maxilla (upper jaw; especially around the tip) bones, then just keep an eye on things.  It might not be a bad idea to have a rabbit-savvy vet take head radiographs to be sure he's not developing any bone infections (osteomyelitis) that could cause abnormal tooth growth.  If this is the case, then the vet may wish to take a sample of infected tissue for culture and sensitivity testing:

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

and put Dutchie on an appropriate antibiotic.  

Hope that helps.

Dana