Why dental disease is the most common and most preventable welfare problem in domestic rabbits, and how diet is the primary driver.
Rabbit dental disease represents a welfare epidemic hiding in plain sight. The vast majority of affected rabbits never receive a diagnosis before complications become life-threatening, partly because owners do not know to look, partly because rabbits suppress pain signs, and partly because many veterinarians do not perform routine oral examination under anaesthesia — the only way to properly assess rabbit molars. The near-complete preventability of acquired dental disease through a hay-majority diet makes its continued prevalence a failure of public education rather than inevitability. Every rabbit on a pellet- or muesli-heavy diet is on a trajectory towards avoidable suffering.