Only eating squishy nuggets????????????

[josiejo]

I’ve asked a few questions about Minky Noodle Legs over the last few months as my poor little girl has been through it (and two of my other piggies sadly passed away within days of each other ).... firstly Minky would not eat and was having trouble walking, we took her to the vet who explained that one of her bottom teeth was very long and we had it clipped.... at the same time we found out that one of her top teeth was missing!!! They also found out that she has arthritis in her back legs. Minky was syringe fed for a while, was given some Fibreplex and started to eat small amounts of veggies again.



Since then she has decreased the amount of veggies she has eaten, she always been fussy but now won’t even touch cucumber – and this was her favourite!!! She also stopped eating the dry nuggets, I ground them down a little, so they were smaller and she did start to eat them.... after a few days she stopped.



One day I mixed up a load of nuggets and water so I could syringe feed her and she ignored my syringe and walked over to the bowl of squishy stuff and started to eat it!!!



Now all she’ll eat is the squishy nugget mixture, no dry nuggets and no veggies.... this has been going on for about a week now.... I make sure she has fresh hay in her cage all the time and although she’ll run through it, lay in it, push it around, etc I’m not sure if she’s actually eating any? I keep my eye on her and if she’s not proactively eaten any nuggets during the day I’ll give her some of the Fibreplex (which she takes without a fight) and usually within 10 minutes or so she’ll be eating away on the squishy nugget mixture.



I’ve tried her now with lots of different fresh foods, grated carrot/apple, cucumber, blueberries (she liked these for a couple of days), spinach, lettuce leaves – but she doesnt want any of them?



So I guess that I just really wanted to check that she was okay just eating the squished nugget mixture?



Any advice would be gratefully received.



Many thanks

Josie xxx

[Orlaith]

Have you noticed any drooling or wetness around her chin? It sounds like her teeth are at her again. Unfortunately it's hard to see pigs' back teeth because their cheeks are so chubby, so you may need the vet to have a look at her.

Definitely keep syringing food into her and try blending up a red bell pepper or similar and giving her some of that to make sure she gets some vitamin C as the vitamin C in pellets can deplete once the bag is opened.

Is she drinking? If not you should syringe some water into her as well.