Rabbit - psychological problem?

Question
Hi, we have a five year old female rabbit whose molar spurs have been filed down by our veterinarian a couple of days ago. Since then, she would not eat or drink anything and seems to be depressed and makes strange mouth movements. She is at the university veterinary clinic at the moment where she is syringe fed. Her teeth have been checked over again and the vet could not find anything unusual. We have experienced this behaviour before, she has had her teeth filed down a couple of times before and took a day or two before she started to eat again, after lots and lots of good efforts from our side (and the offering of various treats). Actually, we had to feed her like a baby, as she was only accepting very small amounts of food (fed by hand). In the university clinic vets opinion (and ours too), she has sort of a psychological problem, because the teeth don't feel the same after the surgery. Now, the problem is, how to get her back to her normal eating habits, since this time no persuasion or offering of goodies seems to work. Have you ever heard of anything similar? Thank you so much for your help! Kind regards, Eveline  

Answer
Dear Eveline,

I have never, in my 20+ years of caring for rabbits, known of a rabbit to stop eating because of a psychological problem.

It is more likely that the filing itself is stressful enough to trigger ileus in your bunny. Please read:

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

Once her teeth feel better, she should eat normally. But if the actual event of having the teeth filed is traumatic for her, then this could be the problem.

I might also suggest that you ask the vet about prescribing some pain relief for immediately after a dental filing.  We've used a combination of tramadol (2-4mg/kg BID) and metacam (0.1-0.3 mg/kg Q24 hours) with excellent results.  A filing can cause mouth pain, and this alone could be causing her to stop eating until the mouth mucosa heal themselves.

You might also want to seek a second opinion from another rabbit vet:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Hope this helps.

Dana