Prevention-focused rabbit dental care through dietary management and appropriate breed selection avoids the significant welfare costs of established dental disease requiring ongoing treatment.
Rabbit dental disease prevention through hay-based diet is among the most straightforward welfare interventions in companion animal medicine — a management change that costs nothing and prevents a welfare problem that would otherwise cause chronic pain and require expensive, repeated treatment. The barrier to prevention is owner education: many rabbit owners do not understand that pellets are a supplement, not a staple, and that hay must form the dietary foundation. Welfare advocacy for rabbits focuses heavily on this dietary education because the gap between what rabbits need and what many receive is so wide and so consequential. Every rabbit maintained on appropriate hay diet is a prevented welfare problem.