• DONATIONS NOW OPEN! TGPF relies on donations to run. If you'd like to donate towards running costs you can find out more HERE
  • Fresh grass and lawn tips to avoid springtime deaths Click here for details
  • Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

can guinea pig damage their teeth on metal bars of their cages?

Status
Not open for further replies.

lovelygirl

Adult Guinea Pig
Joined
Jul 27, 2009
Messages
3,807
Reaction score
5
Points
310
Location
Bristol
as title

have boy foster piggy who is biting the metal bars of his cage will he damage his teeth as if he will i will have to move him away from the girls and his only company
 
No he won't damage his teeth at all. If he keeps doing it, buy him a wooden toy to chew on instead they have lots at pets at home
 
I'm not sure whether he could damage his teeth but it's really irritating isn't it? I had a bar chewer and in the end I moved him to a different cage with smaller wire as I couldn't bear the noise. It is usually because they are stressed or lonely or as in your case, trying to get to the other pigs! I would think moving the cage a bit further away would help, it sounds like he's very frustrated because he can't get to them, so that's probably worse than not having 'company'

Sophie
x
 
Yes, guinea pigs are able to break their incisors on the bars of the cage. They are usually very minor breaks that require no medical intervention.

I've had a few die-hard bar biters, one of them did chip her lower incisor as a result. Interestingly none of mine do it now, but then they have got what they wanted - they have taken over my room!

I also had a sow with a VERY annoying habit - hooking her lower teeth into the spout of the bottle and pulling on it, hard. Often she actually pulled the spout out of the bottle! I had nightmares about that pig, how she never damaged her teeth I will never know!
 
Last edited:
I guess it takes years for them to do any damage to the teeth then, because my 6 year old guinea pig always bites the bars of his cage and he has never damaged his teeth.

Just a thought
 
The pig who chipped her tooth was one year old. One factor is diet - pigs with calcium deficient diets will have weaker teeth (and bones). Another factor is luck!
 
Often they will break a tooth if they are "caught in the act" and pull-back quickly leaving part of a tooth behind!
 
i have offered him the last remaining apple twig which the girls love and he ignores it it is all about the girls. I don't blame him, a he is on his own and b there are some very cute girls next door
 
I have a mum and 7 daughters in a shed which has a `wire run` outside from which they access thru a large pipe.

One daughter called Lily gnaws the wire. The others just look at her very strangly and I think they call her `silly Lily`. So far there appears to be no damage to her front teeth.

Very odd why one out of 8 gnaws the wire and the others don`t.

Anders, xx>>>
 
Some guineapigs don't hurt their teeth from chewing metal, some do.
 
my first GP did it the whole of her 8 1/2 years, never broke a tooth. She used to chew her metal bars to ask for food, if that didn't work, she'd wheek...

We used to put a tea towel over the cage to make her stop.
 
i just say tango shush and he stops for about 10 mins more worried about his teeth than me being annoyed with him
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top