Maddykins
Junior Guinea Pig
Hello, sorry I didn't know what to put as the title as it's difficult to describe! We have two boars, they are approx 5 years old and been together all their lives. They are well bonded, they groom each other, sleep together often etc but one of them is bolshy and outgoing and the dominant pig and gets grumpy/hostile to the other one sometimes whereas the other one is shy and quiet and gets bossed about a bit sometimes.
Our quiet pig is very unwell at the moment and has been for the past fortnight or so, he has a dental abscess in his lower right side of his jaw with some slight osteomyelitis, his future is uncertain at present, he is unable to eat properly himself and has to be regularly syringe fed and hand fed as well as being on antibiotics and pain relief. Anyway in the last two or three days we've noticed a few times that confident pig has been going to the lower right side of his jaw, so roughly where the abscess is, and sort of pulling the skin towards him with his teeth! I've never witnessed anything like this before. It looks quite bad and he does it over and over again insistently if we don't shoo him away. At first we were really worried about him hurting his brother but I've thoroughly inspected the area and there is no sign of any damage. It's not barbering, I've watched videos of this and he doesn't actually eat the hair at all, he just sort of nips the area and then pulls at it, lets go, and repeats. His brother doesn't make any noise when this is happening, nor does he freeze like he's scared, nor does he move away afterwards or anything so he doesn't show any signs of being unhappy with it but I'm still concerned.
What is this, and why is he doing this? I feel like it must be related to the abscess in some way as it's only that side of his jaw that he does it? Should I stop him when I notice it?
Our quiet pig is very unwell at the moment and has been for the past fortnight or so, he has a dental abscess in his lower right side of his jaw with some slight osteomyelitis, his future is uncertain at present, he is unable to eat properly himself and has to be regularly syringe fed and hand fed as well as being on antibiotics and pain relief. Anyway in the last two or three days we've noticed a few times that confident pig has been going to the lower right side of his jaw, so roughly where the abscess is, and sort of pulling the skin towards him with his teeth! I've never witnessed anything like this before. It looks quite bad and he does it over and over again insistently if we don't shoo him away. At first we were really worried about him hurting his brother but I've thoroughly inspected the area and there is no sign of any damage. It's not barbering, I've watched videos of this and he doesn't actually eat the hair at all, he just sort of nips the area and then pulls at it, lets go, and repeats. His brother doesn't make any noise when this is happening, nor does he freeze like he's scared, nor does he move away afterwards or anything so he doesn't show any signs of being unhappy with it but I'm still concerned.
What is this, and why is he doing this? I feel like it must be related to the abscess in some way as it's only that side of his jaw that he does it? Should I stop him when I notice it?
