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Broken Incisors (2nd time!)

SquiglyPiggy

SquiglyPiggy

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi! One of my lovely guinea pigs pumpkin (1.5-2 yrs) has broken his top incisors. The tooth is completely out. He seems to be eating fine and we have daily health checks and when I checked his mouth, the tooth was gone! This has happened already to the other top incisor and it grew back quickly, but I’m concerned this is a more serious health problem if it happens twice. Can someone help me?
 
I would get him to the vet to see what may be going on. Although vets with experience of treating piggy teeth are few and far between, it’s still your best bet.

I’ll tag @furryfriends (TEAS) but be patient 😊
 
I had a piggy who had dental disease with his back teeth but because of this his incisors were extremely brittle. They would snap very easily when he chewed anything.
Since this seems to be recurring, I would remove any chews (including carrot cottages) that aren’t cardboard. Cardboard is fine. If you find that he’s a bar chewer, that habit needs to be stopped. Perhaps by covering the bars with a blanket? I’m not really sure. My boy only chewed bars to ask to go in during floortime so I don’t have any solutions for that, unfortunately
 
@Siikibam We still don’t have a vet unfortunately. We got them about three months but we are still deciding between a local dogs and cats vet that also treats small animals and an expensive exotic vet about 45 minutes away. Our friends recommended both of them, one has guinea pigs and the other has hamsters respectively. We don’t know what to choose but we are gonna have to decide today.
 
@Little Ones We haven’t seen him chew on the bars recently, that habit has stopped thankfully. I’m just worried it’s a problem with his back teeth that we can’t see when we check his mouth.
 
SquiglyPiggy said:
@Little Ones We haven’t seen him chew on the bars recently, that habit has stopped thankfully. I’m just worried it’s a problem with his back teeth that we can’t see when we check his mouth.
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Is he eating hay completely fine? Or is he either not eating it or being selective about which strands he eats? If he’s being picky or not eating his hay then yes, I’d be inclined to think it’s his back teeth. But if he eats hay well then I’d not be concerned about the back teeth at all (I have/had 2 dental piggies). If you aren’t sure, monitor his weight daily. Weigh him at the same time everyday. A fluctuation either way of about 20-40 grams can be the equivalent of a wee so don’t stress too much about that. If you begin to see a consistent drop in weight then I’d be concerned he isn’t eating enough (teeth) or that there’s an underlying issue which needs investigation
 
Little Ones said:
Is he eating hay completely fine? Or is he either not eating it or being selective about which strands he eats? If he’s being picky or not eating his hay then yes, I’d be inclined to think it’s his back teeth. But if he eats hay well then I’d not be concerned about the back teeth at all (I have/had 2 dental piggies). If you aren’t sure, monitor his weight daily. Weigh him at the same time everyday. A fluctuation either way of about 20-40 grams can be the equivalent of a wee so don’t stress too much about that. If you begin to see a consistent drop in weight then I’d be concerned he isn’t eating enough (teeth) or that there’s an underlying issue which needs investigation
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Ok we’ll try to weigh daily. I’m going to try to separate my two piggies so I can more closely monitor Pumpkin.
 
Please don’t separate them. Doing so can lead to their not going back together again.
Ask about their experience with guinea pigs and go with that I guess.
 
Definitely don’t separate. It’s really not needed at all and could just create a different issue.
The thing I’ve noticed about dental piggies is that they have a desire to eat hay (it does make up at least 80% of their diet) but an inability to do so. You might notice your guinea pig looks like he’s eating hay because he really wants to. So, he might be burrowing in hay, sat in hay, excited about receiving hay but when you pay attention you might find he doesn’t actually eat it.
Please don’t separate, it’s hard to tell how much hay is actually being eaten anyway by eye due to how much hay they have in the cage at any given time and separating won’t make this clearer. Just watch and see if he’s eating hay.
You might also find your Guinea pig is sleeping or in a hidey a lot more if they can’t eat right as they have nothing else to do. If when you put fresh hay in, they’re excited but go back to sleep within maybe 5 minutes that could suggest a potential issue. You could also put some hay on the floor during floortime and sit and watch if he eats it. Monitoring weight is really your best bet at figuring out if he’s eating enough food though, especially if you aren’t able to sit and watch for a decent amount of time
 
Oh ok I thought separating them to monitor each one closely was something people did. I read it somewhere. I had to separate when they were fighting once because blood was drawn and we were at the last part of the separation where they went back into the same cage and had a clear grid separating them and they both pushed it over and then snuggled together 😅 but that was only for fighting not monitoring. He’s been eating a lot all day so I’m pretty sure he’s fine I just don’t know why it keeps falling out.
 
Have you weighed him again today? It needs to be daily.
 
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