Sintheya
Junior Guinea Pig
One of my guineapig was eating a little less today so I checked and found one of his lower teeth is gone and the upper teeth are also broken . What could be the reason ?
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Teeth
- Thread starter Sintheya
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Qualcast&Flymo
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Could he have been biting at the bars of his cage, or bumped into something?
Hopefully they will grow back, but he may need some help eating (picking up food) while his teeth are uneven and short. Probably a good idea to start weighing him daily so you can see if he's not eating enough.
Hopefully they will grow back, but he may need some help eating (picking up food) while his teeth are uneven and short. Probably a good idea to start weighing him daily so you can see if he's not eating enough.
Sintheya
Junior Guinea Pig
So I took him to a vet and he said he has to trim his teeth and for that he will use anesthesia. Now I'm scared cause my this baby is a little weak. Should I go with the procedure? his one teeth at the lower side is overgrown so he's having hard time eating that's the one vet wants to trim
Hi
I am very sorry. If there is a single tooth that is not abrading against opposite incisors, then it needs indeed burring down.
Unfortunately, it is in the purvue of the treating vet whether they will do dentals only under full GA.
The incisors are about 4 cm long and curved, which makes them very prone to snapping - this can be a fall/blind jump or running into a hard surface. Bar gnawing can snap one or two teeth occasionally but not usually three at once. How soon incisors regrow depends on how far down they have snapped. The loose part of the tooth needs to slowly grow out.
Are you weighing your boy daily on your normal kitchen scales (ideally first thing in the morning for best day to day comparison) and are you topping him up with support feed to make up for any weight loss?
Over three quarters of what a guinea pig eats in a day is hay, hay and more hay. Any veg, herbs and 1 tablespoon of pellets plus any treats all together only replace the supplementry role of wild forage in the original grass/hay based diet on which guinea pigs have evolved on.
Here are tips for improvising syringe feed:
Your feeding support care is important because the incisors are used for picking up and cutting any food, like hay, which is not possible with just one remaining tooth. The premolars and molars at the back are used for grinding down the nutritional but silica rich grass/hay fibre.
You want to make sure that you can also continue feed him when he comes home.