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teeth

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ellie_jo3213

ellie_jo3213

Teenage Guinea Pig
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just wondering how fast teeth actually grow..
pig had teeth trimmed about a month ago, she was back to normal about 2 weeks after bed and breakfast at the vets. but past few days her bowl of veg has been uneaten and even a bowl of grass and dandelions was ignored yesterday. shes still eating her nuggets though.
would they have already grown back?
 
Yep - they are very fast. For incisors that have broken down entirely it can take as little as 10-14 days for them to grow in fully.

Peggy pig had a good five minutes of dental work done on 9 July (or thereabouts) and she needed nearly ten minutes of dental work yesterday, on her molars and incisors. In 10 days they had overgrown. She is being entirely syringe-fed though, no natural wear there from food at all despite making the syringe-foods quite thick.
 
Hi i have to agree with Laura they grow so fast! it seems ages when they've been trimmed too low tho :(mallethead
Please advise or ask your vets to not trim them too low if their incisors are cut way too low they can NOT eat properly........they will need to be hand fed or encouraged to eat slithers of food :{
was it her front toofies (incisors) or her back toofies (molars) that were trimmed? cause that also can affect the way they eat!
Hope your piggie (what's her name? x)) will be ok xxxxxx
 
thanks. yeh booked her in this evening, she's staying in, being syringed something, crit. care or recovery and going to have GA tomorrow. its quite good really, as i've been there on placement for 4 weeks, and had a chat with the exotic specialist Lance who explained it all, and hopefully i'll get to watch the dental tomorrow so will see exactly how over grown her teeth are.

i think it was the molar teeth which had the problems, lower left to be precise, she just doesn't seem interested in hay. id constantly find her feeding at the nuggets, but never munching on hay. have p@h hay for bedding and excel dandelion and marigold mixed in the bedding and in a hay rack.

the name issue is just as complicated! lol her actual name is Schoffers, but no one calls her that anymore and it was too hard to explain the name on the phone to the vets, so she ended up as Squeeky on their records, but i mostly call her Pig or Smellie.
 
update

So pig had her teeth done today again, and it was the same culprits, the lower left molars. all the others were fine.

ive been racking my brains to try figure out why she should suddenly be having all these teeth problems. shes been happy and healthy for the past two years, but now two dental's in the space of 2 months. i havent changed her hay or her cage, but have changed her food. i switched from P@H nuggets to Burgess Excel oregano and blackcurrent, i cant exactly remember how long ago but i should think it was fairly recently, say since christmas or easter? i was home from uni thoes times, and usually fuss over the pig.

maybe i should switch her to some harder crunchy food, so she has to grind her teeth down.

also shes not that fussed on hay anymore and prefers to eat the nuggets rather than the hay. do pigs get board of some foods? is variety the best way forward?

last thing, after the 1st dental, i noticed that when she was sitting chilling, she kept moving her bottom jaw to the right, but it looked like her mouth was open when shed do it. i assumed that it might have been painful after the dental, but shes kept doing it. its really hard to explain, shes not grinding her teeth when she moves her jaw, its a bit like a stereotypic behaviour, but its only to the right hand side, never the left. shes fine eating and has no problems, well when her teeth are good anyway!
but i thought could this contribute to just the left side over growing? id love to get a video of it, but she still at the vets over night at the mo.
would it be helpful if i try to get a video of it?

but yeh, any tips on food to keep teeth worn down, or any ideas of what this jaw thing is, it would be greatly appreciated!
 
oh perhaps i should mention that back at Christmas she was 1.1kg, then around Easter 1kg, dont know how much she was before the 1st dental (June), but after it she was 900g, which rose to about 950g when she was better, last week she was about 850-900ish g and today she was 810g. i am quite concerned about the weight loss, as am beginning to see the shape of the bones, and the spine and hips are quite prominent.
 
Thanks for updating, I'm glad the teeth have been sorted again. Why do some dental problems occur........there's often no answer. Peggy here has a 'deformed' jaw and for 5 years she had no problems, yet the last four months she's had chronic dental problems and no improvement in sight. Sometimes an illness (which causes loss of appetite) can set it off but something you can't find the answer. Sometimes dental problems will be transient (which often suggests that an illness was to blame for the initial problem) and sometimes they will become chronic - it's just something you take one day at a time.

Weight can be difficult to keep bolstering up but it is easier to help them maintain their weight, than to regain lost weight. How much are you syringe-feeding her? Are you weighing her daily?

To help with their weight a do a few things along with syringe-feeding. I mix bran sprinkles (finely ground bran) into all their syringe-feeds. I always offer soggy nuggets as well as hard nuggets, sometimes that is a stepping stone to normal eating, although not helping to wear the teeth down as effectively, it is moving them further towards independent eating again. Fattening foods include sweetcorn and oats (I mix some fruit in with the oats e.g. mashed banana, mashed strawberry). There are other fattening foods, will find the thread listing them for you later.

Different types of hay will encourage her interest as much as possible - dried grasses and fresh grass too. I make their cages a real food bar while trying to get them eating again - some pigs love it, others couldn't care less, but you've got to keep trying every day. Oxbow hays and Readigrass/Just Grass are really tempting to guineas.

Sometimes the mouth will be sore following dental work, if she seems hesitant or reluctant to eat for herself then pain relief in some form would help. I tend to give both children's Nurofen (0.2ml 2x daily) and Daktarin Oral Gel (0.5ml 2-3x daily) for at least three days after the treatment. Calgel could be used instead of Daktarin; Calgel contains a local anaesthetic and is apparently a good one to apply to the surfaces of the mouth (cheeks and tongue) after dental work, but I think you need to be able to access the back of the mouth to apply it.
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm just at a complete loss at why this is happening. I just know that I cant keep having GA's for dental's every month, due to the pain she must be in, so many anaesthetics in such little time, and its not exactly cheap...

Shes back at home now, eating veg and pellets - no hay though. weekend now i'll get some P@H nuggets, which she was on before, and a bag of Alphala hay that ive seen (£7.99 :o:{ *look of astonishment* ) see if that'll do the trick.

Should I try syringe feeding her? she's very resentful of it and and wont sit still - not like the picture of pig on the fact sheet you sent me when this happened the 1st time!

i cant help but feel theres something odd going on with the lower jaw, you know when you get gut instinct... i cant help but feel sometimes that when i look at her, the bottom jaw is not lining up properly, its off set to the right hand side. am wondering if the gag for her in the 1st dental did something to her jaw, as id not seen her do it before the 1st dental but she continued to do the odd moving thing since then.

aarrggg i really dont know!
 
Overgrown teeth can push the jaw out of alignment; incorrect (or not careful enough) use of the gags/cheek separators can also affect the jaw, but if the teeth are overgrown for long enough, it can set it out of place. Peggy has the same thing going on, and combined with what I believe is arthritis, it can take a long time for her to get going with the syringe some days. She also does the fairly one-sided movement you describe.

The pig on the factsheet was reluctant, believe it or not - look closely at the paws, he's waving for help. :))
 
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is there anything i can do to improve the jaw (if that is what is wrong)?
bah shes being really fussy with hay tonight. ive got wilkinsons treat things - dandelion and green oats. its meant for a treat but its the only forage type thing she'll eat at the mo. Reckon this is ok for a while? i can see me ending up with so many different bags of hay trying to get her wearing down her teeth! i half wonder if she just gets board of it...
 
Others may not agree but IMO, I'd rather they eat something for themselves rather than nothing. Dandelion and green oats is fine if it gets her eating forages again. I wouldn't normally dream of giving my pigs something like bran or oats in normal circumstance, but for dental pigs, I'm more than willing to try them on it...something eventually works for them and yes, sometimes you do end up with every type of hay or other food on the planet in your efforts to encourage them to eat. :))

Regarding the jaw, unlikely much can be done about it, the more normally she eats the more (normally) flexible her jaw will become again. Pain relief may help, worth considering as overgrown teeth and the subsequent dental work can be a lot for such a tiny mouth to endure. Peggy is on children's Nurofen (0.2ml 2x daily for adult pigs) and Daktarin Oral Gel (0.3ml 2x daily, can be increased but Peggy is only 660ish grams).
 
update on the teeth issue...

Well its been 2 months since pig had her 2nd dental, and she's still going strong.
She shouts and swears every night to be fed her veggies, and is still very active galloping about the house, she's even started going into the kitchen and has over come her fear of the tiled floor! Don't know if its a good thing as now she can get to the fridge and the carrots! She's stayed at the same weight for the two months now 840g (+/- 30g here and there).
After the dental I cut right back on her nuggets (as that was all she seemed to be eating) only getting about 20 nuggets a day, plenty of hay and different makes. It was quite hard to see her begging and squeeking for more nuggets (even with a bowl of veggies, grass and hay to eat), but I think my parents found it harder! They felt so sorry for her!
I went on holiday 3 weeks ago and my parents were left in charge of pig. I was quite worried as I was thinking she might need another dental when I was away because it had been about a month since the last dental. But mum let me know how she was doing and that she was still eating.
When I came back a few days ago I was quite surprised to find out that my parents had decided to completely cut out nuggets from her diet! I was a bit worried at first as a was thinking about the lack of vit C, and was convinced she must have lost weight. But weighed her yesterday and no change! So I've decided to stick with no nuggets and supplement with the Vetark Pro C probiotic with added vit c, and see how we go.
I think that with no nuggets for her to eat she's being forced to eat the hay and grass and wear down her teeth.
Got my fingers crossed that she keeps going as she is now.
 
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