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Zara's stopped biting me

Free Ranger

Free Ranger

Adult Guinea Pig
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Why in H&I? Well yesterday she seemed to be taking her fuzzy brown time over her lump of pepper and then she abandoned it halfway...
She's having some trouble eating but I saw her in the pellets and eating hay one bit at a time, and she seems to do OK over veggies cut into strips or small bits. I think it's teeth. I got her out on my lap so she didn't have to defend her small bits from Louise - who is really trying to be polite about it but she didn't get that fat on fresh air. Normally picking up Zara is like juggling piranha fish but she didn't bite me at all and that's when I knew it was going to be serious. She's just not herself.

The vet available today "couldn't see anything wrong" and I can't get a piggy veteran until Tues lunchtime. I investigated C&R in Northampton but they've gone on hols now. So we'll be waiting it out over the next 4 days and hoping for the best. She's been losing weight very gradually - by my scales it's about 100g over the past 2 months although she's still over a kilo and in fact she's the same weight now as when she arrived. I've been kind of waiting for something because you can't go to the vet and say, "well, she just doesn't seem quite herself" but funnily enough the fact she didn't bite the vet today made them think something was definitely amiss... she's only been there twice before but apparently her notes are like a Public Health Warning. She got poked all over today as well. It might be something as simple as overgrown incisors - although why that should be I don't know - she was trying to get a bit of lettuce leaf in and it was like watching someone spin a plate: it went round and round as she tried to bite and manoeuvre it but in the end she stepped on it to rip a piece off. There are occasionally some strange mouth movements when stuff is in there though - like a person trying to get spinach off their teeth with their lips. Her tongue seems to be free as she was licking at the metacam syringe (she doesn't admit to liking it yet but will take it once caught!) I'll be topping up with mushed pellets and a little recovery food ("Not this side of Christmas" was her answer to that!) over the weekend to perk her up. She favours carrot cut into fat matchsticks - she can get it in easily and although some chewed bits drop out again she can pick them back up. I was thinking that carrot is pretty hard to chew so the fact that she's going for that rather than the softer cucumber strips is making me wonder if it's a mechanical issue rather than pain caused by chewing. She doesn't give much away though. Poops just starting to look a bit different.

If anyone has any more clues or tips I'm keen to learn anything that might help her or what to look out for. I've had a lot of piggies and bless them, they all get something wrong in the end, but our dental experience is limited - seems we might be in for a bit of a learning curve Zara. Please be strong - we just have to wait a little while x
girls together (2).webp
 
I personally would call the C&R and get an appointment booked for Kim or Simon for when they get back. They will have a proper look and tell you exactly what’s wrong and do any dental work needed consciously. It will take around 10 minutes and no anaesthetic problems afterwards. I know you want Zara seen soon but I think you would be better waiting a couple of weeks to see the experts as she is still eating and only gradually loosing weight. You can pop a bowl of plain porridge oats and perhaps give her a top up of CC or mushed pellets if needed too once a day to help her along.
 
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Trust your gut. If you think there’s something wrong, there’s probably is something wrong. You know her best. I hope you can soon get to the heart of what’s wrong with her.
 
Thanks both. Simon and Kim are booked up for 2 weeks when they return so we'd be waiting a month. Plan is to try vet Helen next Tue and see what we can do from there. If it goes badly or looks complex we'll register at C&R and mark time or wait for a cancellation. It might be simple (are dentals ever simple?!)

Anyway, weighing daily now... she's eating hay quietly tonight and it's not an effort yet but you can tell something's amiss by the occasional head bob. She has to find an end and spaghetti it in, rather than gobbling gobfuls like the others. Gave her a bowl of mixed matchstick veg and she was delighted, managing well on her own, but got stuck on a small lump of red pepper the size of my thumbnail - she couldn't do it. It kept going in and coming out again a bit chewed. But 2 inch long thin slivers went down a treat. Similarly carrot matchsticks - tick - thin carrot chunk - no can do. I don't think she can bite properly. Her bottom incisors look long to me - they are both there but there's a definite slope to one side. Something amiss. I had her on the table while I was kneeling down and waving lettuce in the air to make her look up. Got a quick glimpse but then she went for my face before I could poke around for the top ones. She's so fierce 💕 She'll see me in hell before she eats syringe food and she won't touch the soaked pellets. Turned my back for a minute and there's Louise, quietly hoovering them up like mini-marshmallows. Zara looked pleased!

I can see myself tomorrow trimming her grass into short strips. She's sussed I'm trying to help her out at least.
 
Incisor photo - anyone seen anything like this before? That bottom right one (left as you look) is unusual. @furryfriends (TEAS) I wonder if you know whether this is a normal variation of piggy teeth or something that might be a problem. I've sent this pic to the vets but the one on duty is the lovely lady who couldn't see anything wrong with them yesterday.
zara's incisors.webp
 
Looks like a really big tooth, but I'm not sure if I see a crack?
Muffin had a mammoth tooth (as we call it in german). This needs to be trimmed every few weeks. My specialist vet talked about removing it if Muffin had been younger.
Nicky had a similar issue but his big tooth cracked a few times right in the middle. It was removed, but unfortunately the teeth problems didn't go away.
 
Well check out the bottom of the weird tooth. I hope you've finished your dinner! Esp thanks to @furryfriends (TEAS) for lumpy tooth advice x
zara incisor root.webp

So phase 1 is trim off the top of the dicky one to remove the pressure on it because that looks like it hurts. We've been sent home with proper amounts of metacam and some Baytril to tackle what is probably an infection. Vet said rest of teeth seemed to line up properly so before we think about GA and burring anything else we'll just give her a few days to see if she can start eating again. Speculation is that the tooth has cracked at some point and maybe the lumpy deposit might be the body's way of trying to repair the crack and save the tooth. So we'll be syringe-sparring till Thursday (oh, she hates it so!) I'm feeling tentatively hopeful tonight which is good because I've spent much of the last 5 days crying my heart up with the stress of it all. I nearly posted on the 'anxiety' thread because of the terrible urgency you feel when the clock is ticking because a piggy stops eating... but I didn't want to trigger anyone! We just had to wait for this Tuesday appointment with the piggy savvy vet. So hard. She's not fallen on her hay when she got back but she has had an attempt at chewing the newspaper. And she has bitten me very hard for the first time in days and as I looked at the welt reddening I felt a bit happier.
(NB: Zara did not bite this vet - that thumb was apparently from a dog earlier in the day)
 
Oh I am so sorry that you have been feeling so stressed and anxious about Zara. I know how easy it is to catastrophise a situation like this. Her gum does look sore. I hope that her "interim" dental has alleviated the pressure on the gum. It's kind of reassuring when you get rewarded with a bite, as things must be less uncomfortable for her, but I appreciate that it's not nice for you. Hang in there - sounds like you are in good hands and this will eventually get sorted.
 
Poor Zara that looks really sore, I hope the meds click in quickly and she soon feels better. Little monkey biting you, the tooth must be less painful already!
I am so sorry you have felt so stressed, it's such a worry when they are ill and you have to wait for a vet appointment. It's so easy to start imagining the worst. As one who suffers from anxiety over my fur babies (the most!) and life in general I do sympathise.
 
Glad you’ve been able to see the vet and get something started to help Zara.
Hopefully she’ll start feeling better as the meds kick in.
 
Oh, this tooth really didn't look good. I'm glad that she was able to bite you again.
I know exactley what you mean. Nicky was also a dedicated biter till his tooth started to play up.

All fingers and paws crossed that your vet can sort this tooth out in the long run and your sweet girl can resume eating.
Does she manage to eat veggy stripes?
 
Update: Zara is certainly feeling more like herself. She has been seen on the water bottle (which she must have been avoiding because of the tooth) and she came out to forage in the new hay with the others this morning. She couldn't get very far with it yet but some strands going in. She sampled her overnight veg strip buffet and pounced on some lumps of celery this morning. Was hoping for a miracle turnaround but any progress is good news for her.
 
And just for those who are interested here is Zara the day before her dental. A bit fuzzy, but you can see how she chews with her mouth open, holding her bottom jaw forward and trying to chew a little strip of lettuce with her back teeth without catching the painful bottom incisor on the upper ones. Although bits of veggie fell from her mouth she didn't drool - so just because there is no drooling doesn't mean it isn't a toothy problem!
Zara before dental.gif
 
Mmmm, but I can sense we're not out of the woods yet. She's eating by herself but not really tucking in, and she's still struggling to get large bits in - so something like half a little gem leaf is no go. It starts to go in and I think 'yay Zara!' but then she just reverses it back out and you can see slobber and little dinks from the front teeth on it. Small strips are OK because they get hoovered up one side. Pulled grass can be challenging but do-able if the pieces are short, but I haven't seen her graze outside. She found a small patch of tiny raspberry leaves just breaking through the soil and had a good go at them but I expect they were more tearable-offable. So she still can't bite properly, but I don't know if this will gradually correct itself as she learns to use her 3 front teeth better, or if she needs that forth one back in the game, or if the remaining ones are all a bit too long (I wouldn't be surprised). She still does this thing where she paws at the grass pile like a chicken scratching in the ground to sort through for something she can manage because she really wants it. Louise has actually been copying her a bit - although unfortunately Louise has slapped on about as much as Zara has lost and is now a great big honker at 1.33kg because she's hoovering up Zara's dropped bits. She looks very guilty but it's quite hard to tackle Zara and have a hand free to repel Mrs Snuffleupagus.

I'm very tempted to top-up because I don't want her to feel hungry even though she hates the syringe it wouldn't actually take much, but at the same time I want to see if she can maintain her weight on her own so I'm not masking anything. She's about 160g down from her heaviest (March - May weight) but still just over a kilo. I'd hoped she would start to increase but she hasn't so far... just not lost any more. She's pooping - not great but OK - so there are some decisions to make. She's enjoying sitting in the hay cube x

I think we'll go back to our vet next week before she goes away - we have the option of x-ray/further incisor burring/GA if necessary to inspect back teeth. I'll just have to see what happens over this coming weekend and we're in a better position than before if she's able to eat veg. Now she's on baytril and dog metacam I'm less concerned about pain and thinking more that her issues could be mechanical. But I bet if there is an infected root it'll take a while to clear. So a little more marking time until the path becomes clear. Hubs is being very supportive x
 
Of course it's important that you get all teeth checked - especially if your vet goes on vacation (mine is too at the moment - I hope my piggies behave themselves). But even if the molars are fine and the length of the front teeth is optimal, it can happen that biting off and grazing stays a problem.
My piggies with front teeth problems usually were able to eat hay by themselves. Sometimes you hardly noticed any difference in their eating habits. But quite often I had to cut the veggies into stripes (and handfeed them - yes, spoiled piggies, but the others in the group are so fast) for quite a long time. If it isn't a one off occasion, but chronic it can go on for this piggies life.
But they are quite happy being pampered. It's more the human part that's the problem, because it can be quite exhausting.

But I hope that the vet can help and Zara will be able to really eat by herself again soon. 🍀🍀🍀
 
Right - we're back on the syringe. She's been less and less able to pick up food and now she can't seem to get anything solid in there. Dropped under a kilo yesterday. Can't pick up grass/hay/matchsticks or anything. Pushed her face into the grass pile but kept coming up empty. Was desperate for the tiniest sliver of skinned pepper this morning and managed it, then eventually another, but heard her coughing on the 3rd and that was that. Reckon the other 3 incisors were just on the cusp of being too long and now they're a barrier to picking up food or grinding properly - she does look a bit 'toothy'. Seems to chew syringe food OK - she's hungry but she can't feed herself and she's got a right face on her about all that. Vet tomorrow (I hope!) or next day if we can't squeeze in...
 
Well it's been a rollercoaster. First I got a call on Sunday - half the staff at the vets (including the lady treating Zara) got pinged over a few days and are having to isolate. They're all really cross as they've been very covid secure and it's also holiday time. They think it happened through an external wall as my vet got pinged for the day when she only had one consult and that was by telephone so she didn't actually see anyone! The practice is a building at the entrance to a little road with more businesses at the bottom so people pass up and down all day. There is also a bus stop very close to the front door as it's on a main road. So I did feel very sorry for everyone. I was also very worried for poor Zara. But after a little bit of 'pushy mom' we got seen yesterday by a different lovely vet who gave us bad news.

Zara's been on the baytril for a week but the gum of the dicky incisor had deteriorated and was is a very bad way... 'necrotic' was the word she used so things had obviously worsened and the tooth had to come out. This is pretty high risk for poor piggies as their jaw bone at the front is thin and fragile at the best of times. She also detected a sort of lump behind the tooth why she warned may be some sort of tumour. So they were recommending a referral to a specialist clinic (Andover or Swindon) for the procedure. And I sat and thought about all the pain she must be in, and how scared she must be, and how she was losing weight every day, and how much longer she would have to wait to potentially just be pts in a complicated way, and I said "can you do it here?" and they thought about who would be on duty and whether she'd have a chance and then said 'yes' and they took her (and Louise) in there and then. I'd said my goodbyes at 4 pm and sat and cried on and off all evening until the txt at 9pm saying she was going in and I might not hear anything until midnight so my heart sank when I got a call at 10. But she'd made it! The vets were triumphant and so they should be. Apparently a piggy incisor can take an hour of gentle pushing and pulling to remove but Zara's came out after 20 minutes because of the state of the gum at the base... so she was also under GA for much less time. no sign of cancer - just a lot of nasty infection. They've stayed in overnight for pain relief and monitoring and to see if she can start eating again... I'll get a call this morning. So she's not out of the woods as she has to heal and start eating again, but I hope and pray the worst is over. Vet also said that if we'd tried to do it the week before when the gum was still good it would likely have been a much more difficult process so we think all our decisions so far have been right for Zara at the time which made me feel a bit better.

The reason I'd thought she looked 'toothy' was because she was very gingerly trying to pick up pieces of veg with her lips peeled back because of the pain she was in, so when she couldn't manage it I'd just thought the teeth were too long, rather than infection, because of the baytril. But the rest of her incisors are apparently a perfect length for now so that's one blessing. What a brave girl 💕
 
Poor Zara - let's hope that the infection can now heal up and she'll be free of pain.

Such a rollercoaster of emotions for you.

Look after yourself as well as Zara

Hugs :hug::hug::hug::hug::hug:
 
Wow you must be feeling exhausted. But your vets sound amazing! I know everyone on here will be behind Zara. You are all in my thoughts 🧡
 
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