Dental disease is the most common health problem in pet rabbits, causing chronic pain that is frequently underrecognized due to prey animal pain concealment behavior.
Rabbit dental disease causes chronic pain that prey animal behavior actively conceals from owners. A rabbit continuing to eat despite dental pain is not demonstrating wellbeing — it is demonstrating the biological imperative to appear healthy that evolved to prevent predator attention to vulnerable individuals. The welfare challenge is detection: by the time behavioral signs are obvious, disease is often advanced. Preventive management through high-hay diets is the most effective welfare intervention, combined with annual veterinary dental examinations that assess molar occlusion under appropriate sedation. Breed selection away from extreme lop conformation would reduce the structural predisposition to dental disease in future generations.