• 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

Dental Potential Dental Issue

Thanks all for the continued support, it’s really appreciated :) we’ve managed to get 10ml down him and have figured out the best way to do it. He sits on my lap and I hold him firmly still then once he’s had a ml he turns around to snuggle in my arm for a minute then we turn him back around for his next ml. It takes time and he still struggles but no where near to the extent as before! He’s currently just come out of his hidey and is munching on some hay :)
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
I find holding the head firmly, works the best, whether holding on your lap or a table!
Today's instructional video on our Facebook page - Syringe feeding
Click to expand...
Your syringe feeding video helped us a lot, we’ve never been able to get the hang of it before but we gave it a watch and had success yesterday and got 7ml in, then 10 today. We’re getting better at it and he’s becoming more tolerant too.

He’s doing a lot better today overall, the best he’s been in over a month. He’s been really active, and has come out to eat countless times today. Normally, we have to get him out of his bed for him to eat food or move around. He’s been eating everything really well and happily had a walk on the floor, being inquisitive. Just the fact that he’s coming out on his own and actually eating stuff is amazing. I can’t wait until he’s not in any pain anymore, to think he’s gone over a month in agony makes me so upset. He doesn’t deserve it at all, he’s such a lovely little thing. If it hadn’t been for the 1ml twice a day of loxicom that Ellie prescribed, he might not have made it this far as I don’t think he’d have even eaten grass because of the pain. I know his progress is just the basic things we take for granted when we look at our pigs, but he’s been so withdrawn and everything has been an effort for him that the small stuff like him not sleeping all day is an amazing achievement.
 
Little Ones said:
Your syringe feeding video helped us a lot, we’ve never been able to get the hang of it before but we gave it a watch and had success yesterday and got 7ml in, then 10 today. We’re getting better at it and he’s becoming more tolerant too.

He’s doing a lot better today overall, the best he’s been in over a month. He’s been really active, and has come out to eat countless times today. Normally, we have to get him out of his bed for him to eat food or move around. He’s been eating everything really well and happily had a walk on the floor, being inquisitive. Just the fact that he’s coming out on his own and actually eating stuff is amazing. I can’t wait until he’s not in any pain anymore, to think he’s gone over a month in agony makes me so upset. He doesn’t deserve it at all, he’s such a lovely little thing. If it hadn’t been for the 1ml twice a day of loxicom that Ellie prescribed, he might not have made it this far as I don’t think he’d have even eaten grass because of the pain. I know his progress is just the basic things we take for granted when we look at our pigs, but he’s been so withdrawn and everything has been an effort for him that the small stuff like him not sleeping all day is an amazing achievement.
Click to expand...
Lovely to hear he’s obviously feeling very much better! Onwards and upwards! 😊
 
Yesterday was another really good day. We only gave him 10ml of critical care as he was taking it for himself so we stopped when he began refusing. He’s eating really well so its just as a top up of food. He had a bit of a slow start but improved once he’d had his antibiotic and pain relief. He is eating hay too which is amazing, yesterday he felt a lot more comfortable eating hay outside of the cage so that’s what he did
7B18BBB6-11E7-4326-9096-333E9A4D4951.jpeg
He had plenty of grass, and some veggies too which he got really excited for. He darted out of his bed the second he smelled them.
This morning, about half an hour ago he emerged from his bed and began eating hay straight away - very well too might I add.
0812B198-8B69-4403-9097-7EEB222A557F.jpeg
He still has a slight smell but only if you’re at his neck. He’s still having water syringed to him on top of times where he’s drinking from his bottle. He also has began chewing cardboard tubes again, before he would try but couldn’t do it and no wonder seeing as his bottom tooth was sore and wobbly. We’re going to weigh him later as he has very dense, thick fur so you wouldn’t think it but he feels quite skeletal if you feel your way under his fur. You can feel each individual rib and all his spine and everything. Last week he weighed 1120g, so he’s not desperately underweight. Before he originally stopped eating he was close to 1300, but slowly lost it and has been maintaining slightly above 1100g for a few weeks now. We were told to drop the metacam from 1ml to 0.5ml starting today, but we think we might leave it high until Tuesday/Wednesday as he’s doing so well that we don’t want a bit of pain to put him off track again
 
Little seems to be back to normal. It’s strange now he slowly lost his character that I barely noticed, but now he’s healthy and active most of the day, I realise now how poorly he really was. His weight was down from last week by 100 grams, but I’m putting it down to when he didn’t eat the entire day we went to see Simon. He has been sustaining his weight since Sunday so we are hoping for a steady increase. My pigs have never been big wheekers but Little let out two loud wheeks when he knew ignoring was veggie time today. So everything is looking up for us.
Unfortunately, my mum isn’t doing too well. She started feeling a bit funny yesterday and is slightly worse today. Fingers crossed she didn’t catch anything last week when we were on the train. Because of this, when she gave Little his 0.5ml of Zithromax about 20 mins ago, she did it a bit fast. Little coughed after the syringe was removed. He’s never done this before, we don’t think we aspirated anything into his lungs as he’s doing perfectly fine, but it took us off guard a bit and worried us. I might have to try the syringe part myself tomorrow if she’s no better but I’m not very good with my fine motor skills and I’m just very clumsy in general so I feel unable to do it unless Little takes it from me himself which doesn’t really happen.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say. We’re really proud of how well Little is doing
 
Aw, such good for news about Little :yahoo: So glad he’s back to himself now. they do loose their personality when they are poorly don’t they, glad he’s got his mojo back!
I hope your Mum feels better tomorrow x
 
He’d been doing really well until yesterday evening when he started with the cow pat type poos. Today, hes been eating but not as much as he was yesterday, his poos have gotten progressively worse and we’ve just had to get lots of diarrhoea out of him about 10 mins ago. I’m not sure if this is due to the veg he’s been having the past few days. They’d only been having bits and pieces of veg (cucumber and some carrot) due to the virus, but a few days ago we managed to get baby leaves, coriander, parsley and cucumber for them to have. Maybe we should have introduced everything back in slower? They’d been having it every day for a few days. We aren’t sure if this is whats caused it but then his poos are really quite bad. He’s had no veg today. Yesterday it was good news as he’d gained 40g since his last weigh, we haven’t weighed him yet today. We aren’t sure if we should offer critical care to him to try and sort out his poos? We also thought about putting in readigrass to provide a bit more encouragement to eat but not sure if that would make things worse?
His wound closed up a few days ago and has scabbed over, we thought it was probably time for it to shut. Not sure if maybe the abscess has potentially filled and is causing problems? He’d been eating fine all yesterday and it started yesterday night so maybe it has nothing to do with how much hay he’s eating?
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
Is he still eating? Have you got any probiotics?
Click to expand...
Do you think getting the scab off is the right thing to do then?
He was eating brilliant yesterday but today not as much, he’s been asleep more than yesterday. He’s still been eating hay but definitely not as much but I’m not sure if it’s because of how his poos are that it might be causing him not to feel like eating. I don’t think we have probiotics no, I haven’t given poop soup either as Peanut has IC and so I wasn’t sure if they’d be safe to give to Little.
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
I keep pulling the scab off until it completely heals. Zoltan had his surgery on the Thursday before Easter and it’s only just completely healed. I’ve been pulling the scab off for nearly three weeks. Every time I pulled it off I got a bit more pus out.
Click to expand...
Okay, we’ve had a look and the scab is holding on by a thread. The wound underneath looks completely healed. He weighs about 5grams less than yesterday so not too bad, we’ve given him 5ml of critical care as that’s all we could do before he began to squeal and fight us about it. We also lowered his metacam dose to 0.5 on Tuesday.
Just had to get more diarrhoea out for him though, I’m hoping the situation has improved by tomorrow. Right now he’s currently eating his hay so I’m hoping he eats it for a while before going to sleep again
 
Got more diarrhoea out at 4am so I was worried it may continue into today, but today his poos are completely back to normal. I’m so shocked at how they went from being so bad to being so good in the matter of a few hours! We will have to cool it on the veg for a few days I think :)
 
Little Ones said:
Got more diarrhoea out at 4am so I was worried it may continue into today, but today his poos are completely back to normal. I’m so shocked at how they went from being so bad to being so good in the matter of a few hours! We will have to cool it on the veg for a few days I think :)
Click to expand...
Great news!
 
Bill & Ted said:
He’s probably over done it x
Click to expand...
Yep that probably was it. Definitely will withhold veg for a few days and then introduce slower next time. They hadn’t had that amount for a week or two. I just didn’t have the heart not to give him it as he would wheek and get all excited whenever anyone went into the room at 5ish as he knew there would be veg soon. He isn’t usually a wheeker and he hadn’t been himself for ages so I felt awful if i didn’t give him it when he was asking so cutely!
 
Little Ones said:
Yep that probably was it. Definitely will withhold veg for a few days and then introduce slower next time. They hadn’t had that amount for a week or two. I just didn’t have the heart not to give him it as he would wheek and get all excited whenever anyone went into the room at 5ish as he knew there would be veg soon. He isn’t usually a wheeker and he hadn’t been himself for ages so I felt awful if i didn’t give him it when he was asking so cutely!
Click to expand...
How is your lovely boy today?
 
Bill & Ted said:
How is your lovely boy today?
Click to expand...
He’s doing really well. His poos are good and it makes such a big difference. When they were bad, he just didn’t feel like moving and I don’t blame him. But today he’s been eating his hay and he’s had a nice walk around during floor time. He was really excited about the night time hay top up too. It’s surprised me how well he has been eating his hay since his operation, he’s gone so long struggling that it’s quite strange not to have to monitor what he’s eating and when. He’s got really good chewing sounds when he eats his hay now too, he’s eating it much faster as well. There’s no sign of his bottom left incisor growing back so it seems like it may be gone for good but it’s not bothering him in the slightest. He’s chewing cardboard tubes well and today even tried to chew the skirting board during floor time which he used to always try and do before he got sick (of course, we don’t let him). Whilst he was sick, he’d go over and just lick them as he couldn’t bite down so his teeth must be feeling nice and strong again. He’s stopped fighting his medicine as much too which is better for everyone.
Overall, he’s doing really well and we’re so pleased. After his diarrhoea we thought something had gone really wrong, but I’m glad it was just a blip and likely down to veg! Yesterday was the first time he has properly laid down in just over a month to my knowledge. He would just stand, then he’d just lay his front feet down, then yesterday as he was sat on me he rolled over a little and stuck out his back leg. I’m hoping he begins to do this when he sleeps in his cage as it’ll be nice for him to have a nice comfy sleep.

7F14B198-BEBD-44F1-9AC7-1FFA881A4FEC.webp
629E0EA5-A59D-4817-B602-76D3637190DF.webp
 
Aw, so lovely to see Little so relaxed and pain free, poor little fella has had a hard time of it but he’s out of the woods now thank goodness. It’s great when they start eating proper with hay too, that’s great news!
 
Little’s been doing amazing since my last update. I was actually considering making a final update. However I’ve ran into a bit of a problem.
We gave Little some veg yesterday, he hadn’t had any since I last noted it here. We barely put any veg in to build him up slowly but his poos went terrible.
Sorry for the gross photo but this just shows how bad they are.
D8D3CA76-5DE9-4A6C-8652-DA8F02DEB262.webp
Any ideas on what I can do to sort this? Like I said, he barely had any veg!
 
Okay his poos are a bit better, we persevered a bit and still gave him some herbs the next day and he was alright. He had no huge poos.
Both piggies could do with seeing Simon atm but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon as last time was so expensive that I don’t think we’d be able to afford the train ride on top of treatment.
Since Little’s bottom tooth is gone for good, the incisor above it is growing longer but also outwards so now there’s a gap in between both his top incisors. I’ve been having to pull food and cardboard and things out from the gap. When he was eating yesterday, he got chunk of carrot like caught up his tooth, like the tooth had gone straight through the carrot and he couldn’t get it off without help. Other than that he’s doing okay. Do you think it would make sense to get the top tooth removed at the root so it wouldn’t grow back? I’m hoping it falls out on its own for now.
Peanut is also having an incisor problem. One of his top incisors has like split into three sections. So if you look at his tooth from the side, his tooth is in 3 parts. The furthest behind is really small, the middle layer is like a regular incisor and the layer closest to the front is thin but growing downwards so now his incisor underneath it is too short. It’s really odd, it’s been like it a while but it wasn’t overgrown then so wasn’t an issue. He’s also been struggling to eat veg as of recently, like doing the weird open mouth chewing thing to dislodge something so I don’t know if there’s a back teeth issue too. He’s still eating hay fine. I suppose I’ll just have to keep monitoring them both to see if the situation becomes worse.
 
So sorry you are having problems with Little’s incisor, it’s all a bit of a nightmare isn’t it. Hopefully furryfield TEAS will see this thread and be able to advise you. Finger crossed for Little x
 
Little Ones said:
Little’s been doing amazing since my last update. I was actually considering making a final update. However I’ve ran into a bit of a problem.
We gave Little some veg yesterday, he hadn’t had any since I last noted it here. We barely put any veg in to build him up slowly but his poos went terrible.
Sorry for the gross photo but this just shows how bad they are.
View attachment 142295
Any ideas on what I can do to sort this? Like I said, he barely had any veg!
Click to expand...

That looks more like impaction (which lots of older boars suffer from). I wouldn't cut out the veg, but just clean it out from the anal sac when you see it building up. You could try fibreplex to see if that helps.

With regard to the incisor, I would try and find a local vet to bur it down, as if the incisors get too long, they clash together and cause the back teeth to overgrow and go badly wrong.
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
That looks more like impaction (which lots of older boars suffer from). I wouldn't cut out the veg, but just clean it out from the anal sac when you see it building up. You could try fibreplex to see if that helps.

With regard to the incisor, I would try and find a local vet to bur it down, as if the incisors get too long, they clash together and cause the back teeth to overgrow and go badly wrong.
Click to expand...
Yeah he does get impaction from time to time, the veg just turned all his poos terrible but he’s been okay since Friday and has been having veg. No impaction or dodgy poos!

I don’t have any local exotic vets unfortunately, the ones which aren’t local would use anaesthetic which Peanut doesn’t cope well with. He gets very ‘the lights are on but nobody’s home’, doesn’t move/poo/eat/drink. It’s awful. Ellie is even further away than that and I don’t believe she’s working right now. She cut Little’s incisors too short that time too. I know that if I were to go anywhere else, it wouldn’t be done perfectly, but I suppose better than nothing. Peanut’s tooth is so weird, in fact looking at all his front teeth they’re a bit dodgy. Mainly due to the actual dodgy one. I managed to get some photos.

AB22062B-2449-4B02-A378-684EEA9C0E11.webp
01B85347-6C8A-41AE-A7B2-BCA140C69E6A.webp
The photo above looks like you can see both top incisors, but actually that’s just one! It’s like separated into three sections, it’s the strangest thing. I wish Simon weren’t so far away :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top