How soon after a dental would you expect your guinea to start eating normally again? Some may remember me posting about my vestibular skinny pig a while back, well she stopped eating hay and was spitting a lot of food out. I took her to the vet and they confirmed a dental needed and did it that day, that was two weeks ago and she still isn't eating hay or pellets. She will nibble on veg but not like she used to. She is currently on critical care and blended veg to keep her weight up. I don't know if I'm fighting a losing battle with Daisy now. I've struggled with her weight since she had her vestibular episode and is left with a head tilt. She's really bright and happy in herself so I'm not sure if she just needs more time
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Dental
- Thread starter Samxox
- Start date
Siikibam
Senior Guinea Pig
I’m sorry your girl is not yet back to full speed with eating. Dentals are a difficult thing where a lot of vets (even guinea pig vets) haven’t got much experience with treating it. It can take a while for them to get back to normal re eating. Likely because they’re scared of the pain.
They need fibre when they are not eating so I wouldn’t do the blended veg. Rather up the amount of critical care she is getting. How has her weight been? Is she managing to maintain or she’s losing? While she is not eating properly for herself, you need to weigh her once daily (preferably morning) and adjust the feed amount accordingly. But you are aiming for 60ml in a 24 hour period.
Can you also give some more detail about what they did to her teeth? Was she given any painkiller after the procedure? If so, how long was she in it for, and what was the dosage? Hopefully someone with more experience will be along in good time to answer you more comprehensively.
What some other members do is to cut the veg into think strips. That usually makes it easier for them to pick up. I’ll tag @Bill & Ted @anyar.dris who have experience of piggies that had dental work.
I hope that she gets back to eating herself soon.
They need fibre when they are not eating so I wouldn’t do the blended veg. Rather up the amount of critical care she is getting. How has her weight been? Is she managing to maintain or she’s losing? While she is not eating properly for herself, you need to weigh her once daily (preferably morning) and adjust the feed amount accordingly. But you are aiming for 60ml in a 24 hour period.
Can you also give some more detail about what they did to her teeth? Was she given any painkiller after the procedure? If so, how long was she in it for, and what was the dosage? Hopefully someone with more experience will be along in good time to answer you more comprehensively.
What some other members do is to cut the veg into think strips. That usually makes it easier for them to pick up. I’ll tag @Bill & Ted @anyar.dris who have experience of piggies that had dental work.
I hope that she gets back to eating herself soon.
anyar.dris
Forum Buddy
Try hand feeding her some strips of veg like spring greens, cucumber, carrots, etc. during feeding time, along with the CC and mushed veg. I even cut the lettuce and spinach/salad leaves into strips. This will help her to start eating solid food again. If you can get grass and dandelion, give it to her too. And also pellets.
It's usually a long trying time (and tedious) to encourage a dental piggy to eat normal again, especially if the piggy has been used to syringe feeding for a long time. So we always make sure that the dental piggy being syringe fed on our lap will have a selection of these solid food that we can hand feed too. Although it will also depend whether the dental procedure has been done properly and the issue was dealt with in the first place.
It's usually a long trying time (and tedious) to encourage a dental piggy to eat normal again, especially if the piggy has been used to syringe feeding for a long time. So we always make sure that the dental piggy being syringe fed on our lap will have a selection of these solid food that we can hand feed too. Although it will also depend whether the dental procedure has been done properly and the issue was dealt with in the first place.
She had dropped a lot of weight after her vestibular episode. So has been on critical care daily since September. She had got back up to 540gram. Then started losing despite critical care. We have finally managed to get her to eat critical care from the bowl instead of been syringe fed all the time. She was given metacam after her dental fot pain and metachlormide (can't spell) for her gut. She only like the emeraid intensive critical care too. I will post before and after pics of her teeth. My worry is she isn't eating hay, therefore not grinding her teeth down
