r/RATS • u/Tom_4760 • 2h ago
Questions/HELP Lost two front teeth
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Max fell to the floor from the top of her cage last week. She didn’t seem to be fazed by it, but I checked that none of her limbs were broken or hurt and left it at that.
Over the weekend I noticed that she wasn’t as active as usual, and she was drinking a lot. I thought she might have an infection, but after observing her for a few hours I realized that she wasn’t eating properly. She would pick up a pellet and sit with it for a while, but she wasn’t actually biting on it. She and her two sisters get a small amount of hemp seeds and linseed with each meal, and that was all she was able to eat.
I’ve been feeding her human baby food for a couple of days, until I finally managed to get her to the vet this morning. It turns out both her upper front teeth are missing, the lower two are intact. The vet wasn’t able to determine if the growth zones were affected, but I’m hopeful…
For now she’s on soft food. She won’t eat pellets softened with water, so I’m trying to find healthy alternatives that can sustain her for a couple of weeks.
If you have been through something like this, did the tooth/teeth end up regrowing, and what soft foods did you give?
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u/PetrichorClay 2h ago
IsamuRatCare on yoytube has a video on making a balanced soft food diet for rats. Hope this can help https://youtu.be/vEjKmZ9Lh34
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u/RelevantMode 1h ago
time will tell.
upper ones regrow slower though.
but the lower ones, without upper ones to keep them short, can grow more than 1mm a day.
so you'll need to have them shortened probably about weekly, or they'll overgrow badly.
check on them every 2nd day or so.
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u/akutazaki 21m ago
***Editing since I somehow missed that you took her to the vet already, oops, lol. After adding more not-solid food keep an eye on her response to make sure she’s not in pain :)
You’ll want to take her to a vet. I had a rat with a genetic defect where his upper teeth did not grow so he needed teeth trims on his lower teeth every 3 weeks for his entire life. You need to make sure there’s not permanent root damage and keep those bottom teeth down until her top ones (hopefully) grow back. She may need pain meds in the meantime as well, so please get her looked at.
As for soft foods, my toothless boy enjoyed Ensure which was a high cal drink as his main caloric intake. He was also given babyfood of all flavors- he loved meat, and banana. Pastas, mashed potato’s, mashed bananas, soaked pellets, baby star puffs, etc. If you want more info please reach out.
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u/RhubarbNecessary4151 2h ago
Baby food and avocado if she loses weight , keep checking to see if the nubs are growing you may need to cut the lower teeth if they misalign