Zoos Victoria raises awareness of herbivore oral health care

Werribee Open Range Zoo celebrated World Oral Health Day (20th March) by having the teeth of their pod of five female hippopotamus checked by keepers as part of their regular oral health care routine. They were then treated with a swim, a snack and a splash from a hose.

Zoos Victoria has partnered with Dental Health Services Victoria since 2017 to raise awareness about the importance of oral health care, with Werribee Zoo’s hippos the perfect ambassadors.

Just like humans, hippos require regular dental checkups – the herbivores’ diet of grass and plants can sometimes result in tricky sticks and seeds getting lodged in between their gums and teeth.

With hippos possessing some of the largest sets of teeth in the animal kingdom, a brief tooth-brushing simply won’t do.

Werribee Zoo’s team of keepers and staff have designed training programs to allow non-invasive health checks for many of their animals, including oral checks.

“Animal training helps us to perform non-intrusive health checks,” Hippo Keeper Ross Taylor said.

“For our hippos, it allows us to open their mouths on cue, hose out their gums, pick out any grass seeds and even file down any sharp teeth that might cause the hippos harm.”

Keepers are a type of substitute for the animal kingdom’s own dentists. “We replace birds and fish. They’re the ones that clean and look after hippos’ teeth in the wild and we do the same job here at Werribee Open Range Zoo,” Taylor said.