Hello,
We adopted a 3yo New Pig in March after our 4yo Original Pig sadly lost her sister in early February.
At first, Original Pig was the dominant one, as she had been previously. However, a few weeks ago, the situation reversed itself, and New Pig was suddenly in charge. New Pig is also a sow, but bigger than Original Pig, who has always been on the small side.
Original Pig hasn't really been herself since she lost her sister. She did perk up a bit when we got New Pig, but after losing her dominant status, she's seemed really depressed.
She doesn't move around a great deal during the day, and - most concerning - she isn't really eating much hay at all. Like, hardly anything at all in the past few days.
She is eating nuggets, veggies and grass quite happily, though - which is what I find strange. We don't overfeed any of these, by the way.
She's lost weight due to not eating much hay at all, and so we took her to the vet yesterday (an exotics vet). The vet couldn't find any significant issues, though we booked her in for a follow-up dental check next week, with a view to potentially getting her teeth sorted if they've grown too long due to not enough hay. The vet said her back teeth did look like they could potentially be causing one or two issues, but it was difficult to say. And also, it's impossible to know if that's the root cause of her not eating hay - or simply the result of her not doing so.
So I wanted to ask, do you have any advice on anything else we could try before she goes to get her teeth sorted?
I've considered a trial separation to see if that perks her up. If it does, I'll have my answer, I guess - though it will present another problem as we don't have space for two cages side-by-side.
Any thoughts very welcome!
Additional notes:
1) It's hard to know if she's being bullied by New Pig. When they're outside, Original Pig will follow New Pig around, nose to bum almost. And she seems happy enough out there, munching on the grass (we currently let them out at least an hour a day). However, inside, New Pig does rumblestrut a LOT, so I don't know if that's putting Original Pig off from trying to eat hay. She is happy enough to eat veggies and nuggets, though, as I say.
There's not really any worrying dominant behaviour that I can see other than rumblestrutting. Just the usual kicking out of hides on occasion. Certainly no actual fighting.
2) We're currently feeding Critical Care to help ensure she's getting enough fibre and nutrients, and also to hopefully put some weight back on her. I did hope it might encourage her to start eating the hay again, but so far no joy.
3) We've tried several different types of hay, but with no luck on any.
4) The vet gave us some painkiller medicine to give her until she goes back next week in the hope that that might help her eat if it was her teeth bothering her, but again, that hasn't seemed to help so far.
5) Our cage is a 4x2 Kavee. And we put out plenty of piles of hay and various hides with two exits.
We adopted a 3yo New Pig in March after our 4yo Original Pig sadly lost her sister in early February.
At first, Original Pig was the dominant one, as she had been previously. However, a few weeks ago, the situation reversed itself, and New Pig was suddenly in charge. New Pig is also a sow, but bigger than Original Pig, who has always been on the small side.
Original Pig hasn't really been herself since she lost her sister. She did perk up a bit when we got New Pig, but after losing her dominant status, she's seemed really depressed.
She doesn't move around a great deal during the day, and - most concerning - she isn't really eating much hay at all. Like, hardly anything at all in the past few days.
She is eating nuggets, veggies and grass quite happily, though - which is what I find strange. We don't overfeed any of these, by the way.
She's lost weight due to not eating much hay at all, and so we took her to the vet yesterday (an exotics vet). The vet couldn't find any significant issues, though we booked her in for a follow-up dental check next week, with a view to potentially getting her teeth sorted if they've grown too long due to not enough hay. The vet said her back teeth did look like they could potentially be causing one or two issues, but it was difficult to say. And also, it's impossible to know if that's the root cause of her not eating hay - or simply the result of her not doing so.
So I wanted to ask, do you have any advice on anything else we could try before she goes to get her teeth sorted?
I've considered a trial separation to see if that perks her up. If it does, I'll have my answer, I guess - though it will present another problem as we don't have space for two cages side-by-side.
Any thoughts very welcome!
Additional notes:
1) It's hard to know if she's being bullied by New Pig. When they're outside, Original Pig will follow New Pig around, nose to bum almost. And she seems happy enough out there, munching on the grass (we currently let them out at least an hour a day). However, inside, New Pig does rumblestrut a LOT, so I don't know if that's putting Original Pig off from trying to eat hay. She is happy enough to eat veggies and nuggets, though, as I say.
There's not really any worrying dominant behaviour that I can see other than rumblestrutting. Just the usual kicking out of hides on occasion. Certainly no actual fighting.
2) We're currently feeding Critical Care to help ensure she's getting enough fibre and nutrients, and also to hopefully put some weight back on her. I did hope it might encourage her to start eating the hay again, but so far no joy.
3) We've tried several different types of hay, but with no luck on any.
4) The vet gave us some painkiller medicine to give her until she goes back next week in the hope that that might help her eat if it was her teeth bothering her, but again, that hasn't seemed to help so far.
5) Our cage is a 4x2 Kavee. And we put out plenty of piles of hay and various hides with two exits.
