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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Teeth Grinding

The question is: My pig is chewing big time on the carpet and on one of the living room chairs. Is there anything I can do to get her to stop?

From the sound of things I think she is probably teething. They don't usually bother furniture but the carpet is fair game. There are a few reasons this may be happening so we can go through just a couple.

Is she a young pig? And probably the most important are you feeding her enough for her age?

Young pigs will sometimes go through a teething process and that's when they grit their teeth the most and find things to chew on just like a baby.  I give mine the large size hard milk bones a couple of times a day when they go through that stage. When Oshay was going through this it was winter and he loved chewing on ice.

If this pig is about four or five months old this could be the problem and it can be as late as twelve months old but she is also old enough to say NO to when she does it  and you should redirect her to something else.
Hungry pigs will also show this behavior and sometimes we forget that these are still babies at this age and need more food than an adult gets to grow the bone and muscle that they may need when they are adults.

We feed puppies well ....and kittens and foals and calves and all other baby animals and a baby pig is no different. Sometimes people misunderstand about not feeding too much and end up not feeding babies enough. If she is under a year I would also give her a children's vitamin every day and it can be a cheap generic brand of Flintstones.

3 comments:

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  2. My 3 year old has one tooth on each side of bottom jaw that have grown out to the point they are almost rubbing on his cheek when he eats. Is there a way to grind them down without visiting the vet?

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  3. Sounds like he needs a tusk trim...and that is something should be done by a professional or someone with experience as you don't want your pig inhaling the tusk.

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