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Dental trim recovery: not eating much hay

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Piggies4Evah

New Born Pup
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Hello,

my guinea pig's back molars were trimmed 3 weeks ago, because they had formed a bridge over his tongue making eating difficult. He's acting like a pretty normal guinea pig now and has a big appetite. He loves eating veggies and pellets too.

However, I've been having a hard time getting him to eat hay. It seems that chewing the hay with his back molars is difficult to him, thus he has been avoiding hay but has eaten everything else. And since hay is critical for guinea pigs, I have supplemented it by syringe feeding him every day with high quality critical care. It's stressful because 3 weeks is a long time, and I would like to see him return to normal hay eating habits.

I'm afraid he's becoming accustomed to the syringe feeding and will avoid the hay for that reason. And another thing that stresses me out that his back molars will grow a bridge soon again, because he isn't naturally trimming his own molars by eating hay. How could I encourage my piggie to start eating hay as he normally would?
 
Some additional background: he was diagnosed with scurvy which had softened his tooth tissue and his teeth had darkened in color. Because of this, a molar trim was a must.
 
No real advice to offer but I feel your pain as I am at 2 weeks syringe feeding with a piggie that won't eat due to suspected dental issues. I did decide to give my piggie some grass today after reading on here that it will perform a similar function to the hay but can be easier on teeth and she did eat quite a few strands which is something at least. Perhaps your piggie may be willing to try that?
 
SallyM79 said:
No real advice to offer but I feel your pain as I am at 2 weeks syringe feeding with a piggie that won't eat due to suspected dental issues. I did decide to give my piggie some grass today after reading on here that it will perform a similar function to the hay but can be easier on teeth and she did eat quite a few strands which is something at least. Perhaps your piggie may be willing to try that?
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I just tried something like this – I went on to buy dried dandelion from the pet store and spread it on top of the hay. Now the piggie is munching on the dandelion, and I hope that at the same time he would start nibbling on the hay and maybe get back his appetite for it again. I will be monitoring him in case he starts to pick up on the hay too.

Overall he is in good condition, he's drinking on his own and he's very active, starts wheeking over food and looks healthy, so there's no hurry to take him to the vet yet either, I think :) I just really hope this method works and he would start to eat hay on his own.

Syringe feeding is really stressful when the pig doesn't eat by itself, because the piggie's life is dependent on you. I hope the grass method works on your guinea pig and it would start to feel comfortable eating on its own. By the way, has your piggie visited an exotic vet already about the suspected dental problems? Usually, they aren't curable at home and require some trimming treatment, and after that their recovery can be supported at home.
 
Yes but unfortunately my local vet isn't experienced enough to identify the issue. She trimmed her teeth last week but still not eating so not sure if still a dental issue or something else. Have contacted Northampton and am hoping for an emergency appointment on Monday when the experts are back from holiday
 
SallyM79 said:
Yes but unfortunately my local vet isn't experienced enough to identify the issue. She trimmed her teeth last week but still not eating so not sure if still a dental issue or something else. Have contacted Northampton and am hoping for an emergency appointment on Monday when the experts are back from holiday
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I can thoroughly recommend Simon or Kim Maddock at the Cat and Rabbit, they are “the best vets by a mile for anything dental and quite literally life savers
Do book an emergency appt, they open them at 8.00 am Good luck 🤞
 
Piggies4Evah said:
Hello,

my guinea pig's back molars were trimmed 3 weeks ago, because they had formed a bridge over his tongue making eating difficult. He's acting like a pretty normal guinea pig now and has a big appetite. He loves eating veggies and pellets too.

However, I've been having a hard time getting him to eat hay. It seems that chewing the hay with his back molars is difficult to him, thus he has been avoiding hay but has eaten everything else. And since hay is critical for guinea pigs, I have supplemented it by syringe feeding him every day with high quality critical care. It's stressful because 3 weeks is a long time, and I would like to see him return to normal hay eating habits.

I'm afraid he's becoming accustomed to the syringe feeding and will avoid the hay for that reason. And another thing that stresses me out that his back molars will grow a bridge soon again, because he isn't naturally trimming his own molars by eating hay. How could I encourage my piggie to start eating hay as he normally would?
Click to expand...

Hello and welcome to the forum. I totally understand how you are feeling. I had to syringe feed my Pepper for about 5 weeks recently while he was on antibiotics for a tooth root abscess. It is vey stressful. How is your piggies weight? Also have they been back for a checkup as they are still not eating since the operation. If they can manage veggies and pellets then I’m not sure why they can’t manage hay. Are they on any painkillers?
 
weepweeps said:
Hello and welcome to the forum. I totally understand how you are feeling. I had to syringe feed my Pepper for about 5 weeks recently while he was on antibiotics for a tooth root abscess. It is vey stressful. How is your piggies weight? Also have they been back for a checkup as they are still not eating since the operation. If they can manage veggies and pellets then I’m not sure why they can’t manage hay. Are they on any painkillers?
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Thank you for the warm welcome!

I have never weighed my guinea pig, but when I pick him up I can feel that he is a bit skinny, but not as skinny as he was right after the operation. In general, he is of a smaller size, too. I feel he's gained some weight through syringe feeding and there is "mass" around his bones, too.

I was told to come back for a new checkup 1 month after the dental trimming to make sure everything is in order, so next week would be the designated time for his checkup. He is not on painkillers regularly, but I gave him 0,4 ml of painkillers yesterday and today because yesterday I noticed him hunching under his cottage and looking like he was in pain. The painkillers did help and he's not showing signs of pain anymore. I'm thinking that his teeth are still a bit sensitive and sometimes hurt, and he is avoiding chweing the hay because of this.
 
Piggies&buns said:
It’s very important that you weigh him.
Weight checks need to be done as routine once every week in healthy piggies but when there is a health issue and you are syringe feeding then you need to weigh him yourself once every day. It is the only way to know you are feeding him enough. This is so important so please do start routine weight checks.

I hope he starts to eat hay soon

Weight - Monitoring and Management

All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
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Thank you for the advice, I will start weighing him first thing in the morning (I read morning is the best time for weighing) and repeat that every day to see if I'm feeding him enough. I think he will manage until his vet visit next week but I will carefully start monitoring his weight and if anything drastic happens, take him to the vet earlier.
 
Update:

My piggie weighs around 350g. Now I know that this is severely underweight. However, he is also very small in general, so I think he would weigh around 600g in his normal weight. There's at least 250g to gain then. I've started to double his food intake from this point on. He will be getting 50 ml critical care every day.

I have some questions: Should I give the piggie an unlimited supply of pellets, because he is at least eating those? Or would that not be smart, in case he will be less eager to touch his hay then?

And also, the critical care I've been using is very expensive, and now that I have to feed him more, it's pretty tough financially. I was thinking if I could make him some critical care at home. Would mushed-up pellets and hay with added C-vitamin be a good substitute for the branded critical care products?
 
You could mush up his pellets with some warm water, leave to soak for around 10 minutes as a substitute. You can mash a bit if banana if he likes it. Ideally though some of the critical care needs to contain hay. How you would do this, I don’t know?. Have you got a coffee grinder? That may work, but I have never tried it. You would have to make sure that that the hay is really ground down so as not to choke him, as GP’s cannot bring back food once in their mouths, so choking is a hazard. A bowl of Plain dry porridge oats can be given in his cage, he might like them, some do others don’t. While he is so underweight I would give him dry pellets too if he is eating them without help. You need to build up. So he normally eat grass, that is quite a good substitute for hay, but if he is not used to eating grass then try a few strands and increase if guinea pig if ok. Some guinea pigs can get bloaty, so be cautious
 
Mushed up pellets is fine to use as a critical care feed (what you don’t want is for a healthy piggy to have lots of and unlimited access to pellets due to the high calcium content and the fact pellets aren’t needed in the diet) . However it is lower in fibre than proper recovery feed hence a proper recovery feed is recommended if a piggy needs to be fed for a long period.
You don’t need to add hay to it (and it probably isn’t very easy to do so anyway.
You also don’t need to add vitamin c. Pellets are enriched with it anyway

Give him as much critical care as he wants and needs to keep his weight stable every day. He may need more than 50ml so don’t try to limit it if he wants it
 
Thank you all for the insightful advice again, you make me feel less in distress with my recovering guinea pig :)

I've decided that after I run out of this premium critical care, I will buy some again BUT I will only be using it as an additive to the homemade pellet mush. This way I don't have to buy it as often, and the piggie won't lose as much fiber from its diet compared to feeding only pellet mush. Won't add any hay or C-vitamin either.

I think I will aim for 60 Ml per day and see if he picks up on some weight, and then increase the amount if he doesn't gain weight at all. I would want to feed him as much as he wants to eat but unfortunately, I don't have the time to sit there feeding him without limits, since he'd be munching away for like an hour and I'm busy myself too :D But as I said, I will increase the feeding amount if needed.
 
It really is a tricky one and having fed a piggy for a long time too my heart feels for you. If he is happy eating veggies and pellets will he also eat a mush of pellets or recovery food on his own? If yes you can leave a plate of this in his cage overnight for him to eat throughout 24 hours. Do you know roughly how old he is?

It sounds like it was the dental problem that actually stopped him eating. In my girl's case it was another problem that stopped her eating (we never found out what sadly, but think it might have been a swallowing issue) and the teeth overgrew as a result. But although my girl had painkillers for the week following her dental operation she didn't show any real signs of pain until right at the end (6 weeks later). She did not hunch up, fluff out fur or hide away. She didn't cry when picked up and she didn't grind teeth. But she didn't eat anything apart from what I syringed in. If your boy is showing signs of pain which can be relieved with painkiller it is a sign that there is something else going on with him. One thing that posters here report now and again is abscesses round the jaw or at the root of the teeth. These can make it a tender business to eat - especially the hard stuff like hay which has to be properly ground down. Softer veggies and pellets are more manageable.

Qu: Did you need/get any antibiotics following your dental? How much painkiller was he on then? And did your vet look/fee for lumps around the jaw which might point to infection?

Something else that happens is that a small dental spur is missed during the op. Piggy cheeks are so fat it's really hard to get a good look at everything even when they are under! But a little spur can continue to cause difficulty. One poster recently was in despair because the 'specialist' vet had told her there was nothing wrong with her piggy's teeth but in the end a different, very careful vet found a nasty looking open ulcer right at the back of the mouth behind the molars. Almost impossible to see... but it can happen. In your position I wouldn't wait for the official check-up, I would ask that they could bring it forward. My vet gives meds for a week after a dental because after that you are kind of expecting piggy to be back to normal. The soft teeth may have complicated this issue or it might be something else.

Grass is easier to eat than hay. But if you are coming up for winter I bet there will be less and less around. My pigs get as much grass as they will eat - they are indoor but we try and bring 'too much' in for them. BUT they still go at their hay and really enjoy it. If you have not fed grass before you have to introduce a little at a time so the gut adjusts or they may be a risk of bloating up.

They can 'lose confidence' in eating sometimes, which I personally think could be a survival adaptation. Who's to say they don't associate feeling ill with what they've just been eating and thus avoid it in the future. But hay is so fundamental to piggies I really think your boy's problem is more than in his mind. I think he has some sort of discomfort which is stopping him tucking in. I have an old boy who has recently been diagnosed with his second bladder stone. He is on painkiller but slowly losing weight because he is 'off' his hay. He still gets very excited for morning veggies. He also gets very excited for the grass pile an hour or so later... but he can't gorge on it like he used to - his feeding time seems to be cut short. At first he was tucking into hay as normal but now he just seems to pick at it. He is likely to gently deteriorate although I try to keep him comfortable with some syringe food each day - which he has mixed feelings about! His teeth are fine - but he's off his hay because of pain. So when you go back to the vet ask about getting a full exam where they check eyes, ears, gut sounds and gently poke the bladder for tenderness. It sounds like a mouth thing, it probably is a mouth thing, but it's better to be sure.

Good luck, little man, and let us know how you get on x
 
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