Strange toenail?

[karena]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone can offer me any advice? The nearest recommended guinea pig vet to us is an hours drive away, and every other vet I've seen has said it's fine, so just wanted to see if anyone had any similar experiences before!

This is my guinea pig, Matty's, back foot nail. We got him as a rescue piggy 3.5 years ago, and he was fully grown there (they'd rescued him from an auction so no idea how old he was, but he was fully grown even then). He's always had one nail bigger, but it seems to have slowly gotten bigger so now it's massive compared to the others. He doesn't seem in any pain from it, never has, and he'll happily let me cut the nail and touch his toes. He's a lovely piggy

The vets we've seen suggested arthritis and other's aren't sure, but said it's fine if it's not causing him pain, which it's not - it's just bothering me that I don't know what it is! I've kept piggies since I was a child but never seen anything like this before Any suggestions?

 

[Nassala]

I had a pig with a similar thing. One nail was thicker and grew a little differently from the others. It didn't hurt him and my vet was not concerned either. I always assumed it was a fungal thing like we get, but not anything affecting health, only the nail, although it might not have been. Either way, it made absolutely no difference to my pig over his whole life.

 

[Claire W]

It looks like he’s ripped the nail out previously and it’s grown back like that. My Edward ripped a nail out a couple of years ago and his nail grew back thick and weird looking. Nothing to worry about

 

[Eriathwen]

It definitely looks like there has been some trauma to that toe around the nail bed at some point in his life. My Leonard has a similar nail on his back foot, he managed to cut his toe on something at about a year old and even though I gave him painkillers and cleaned the wound, he decided he was going to chew the nail off right to the base.. ever since it's grown thick, crumbly but hard with next to no quick inside. It doesn't cause him any issues or bother him at all.

 

[karena]

Thank you so much for your prompt responses everyone, I was feeling like an awful piggy owner! It would make sense if it was like that, did you find when it was to do with trauma it grew back thicker and continued to get thicker over time? I can't see the quick at all so it makes me nervous trimming that nail, hoping it doesn't get harder with time!