Dental health concern, advice wanted

[WheekHearted]

Recently my Arwen who has always loved pea flakes started accepting them as usual but then she’d drop them. Now she won’t even take them from my fingers whereas my other sows are so eager to get them.

I’ve read if they developed any dental issue they will refuse hard textured foods.

If it helps She still eats veggies fine. She eats more hay than anything else. She eats hay far more than My others.

Right now she barely nibbles small pet select biscuits. The others grab these heart shaped treats and run off with them. She barely grabs onto them… I think her mouth is suddenly sensitive

 

[Swissgreys]

It certainly could be a dental issue.
Do you regular weigh her and her cage mates?
And has she lost weight recently?
This really is the best way to tell how much a guinea pig is eating and is a great indicator of overall health, as well as being an early warning sing of problems.

However it does sound like she might benefit from a trip to the vet to have her mouth checked.

 

[Bill & Ted]

I think if she is eating lots of hay and has a stable weight then its less likely to be a dental problem. Does her breath smell of stale dishcloth? This can be thrush which makes their mouths sore, sometimes they can get a bit of hay or hard pellet stuck which can also cause discomfort. In my experience the first thing that stops/drops off is the ability to eat hay but if you are at all concerned then see a vet who has plently of experience dealing with guinea pigs teeth.
Typical signs of dental issues are

Dropping food out of their mouths
Pulling strange faces while eating/or gagging on food
Drooling
Not eating hay
Gradual weight loss (you should weigh daily at the same time and see if there is a downward trend)
Choosing softer foods against hay

 

[WheekHearted]

I just got my scale to weigh them weekly. I haven’t weighed them at all until today so I can’t say for sure whether it’s down or up but I will monitor their weight from now on.

There’s a sanctuary near me who does free health checks on pigs including dental checks. That would surely tell me something right? They check their teeth out but I don’t know how exactly or if that can tell us everything.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Definitely best to monitor their weight weekly as routine when you aren’t concerned about them.
If you do have any health concerns such as now, then ensure you weigh them every day as it gives you the ability to more closely monitor things and step in more quickly if there is a problem

Most vets would still need to sedate/anaesthetise a piggy to check their molars properly so the sanctuary may not be able to tell you anything about the molars….of course we don’t know anything about the sanctuary so couldnt know how experienced they are or whether it would be an actual vet doing the health check. A qualified vet being the only person who can diagnose a problem.

 

[WheekHearted]

I gave them their first weigh in:

Arwen - 998g
Galadriel - 1088g
Eowyn - 1079
Tauriel - 1074

So Arwen is lighter than The rest. I feel bad for not weighing them by now