# pot belly piglet question



## 1eyejer (Feb 18, 2011)

im thinking about aquiring a pregnant pot belly pig,,do need to remove teeth from the piglets???


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## PattySh (Feb 18, 2011)

I have no experience with pot bellies but I just had a full size litter of piglets and at birth removed the teeth with  a pair of flat pliers and they still scratched mama up quite a bit. I recommend it. Do it at birth tho while they are still a bit sleepy. They get "rugged" real fast!


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## jhm47 (Feb 19, 2011)

I would snip them off.  When we raised commercial hogs, if we didn't do it, we would have problems.  There are a total of 8 "needle" teeth.  They are needle sharp, and can cause quite a bit of pain to the sow, and also to the babies on the teat next to them.  I used a side cutting pliers and just cut them off.  Didn't seem to hurt the babies at all, and they went back to nursing immediately.


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## PattySh (Feb 19, 2011)

jhm47- Do you take the teeth off right to gum level. I was a bit nervous doing that the first time and boy do they wiggle. I may have not gotten them short enough? 

PS- my heifer came into heat so didn't need the patches! Wrote it on the calendar so I will be able to breed her hopefully in March.


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## elevan (Feb 19, 2011)

On the boys you also should remove the scissor teeth as they can do MAJOR damage when they are older with them.


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## drdoolittle (Oct 29, 2011)

Just found this older post about cutting piglets teeth.  I was wondering the same as PattySh----do you snip the teeth right at the gum?  Also, where are the scissor teeth on the males?  I have to cut my piglets teeth tomorrow morning, and am really nervous about it----don't want to injure them.  I'm also going to give them their iron shots---but someone told me the paste you feed them works better.  What do those of you with experience recommend?


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## elevan (Oct 29, 2011)

from:  http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0690E/t0690e06.htm#unit 27: teeth clipping in young pigs


> Clipping the teeth
> 
> If the sow is not tied up separate her from her young and place her in another pen. Take care as the sow with a litter can be dangerous.
> 
> ...


The scissor / eye / canine teeth are the teeth that you want to clip / remove.  If left the males are much more aggressive with them than the females later in life.  Some people prefer to only remove the sharp points on the teeth.  While that may work for females it is not a good idea for males...and I don't even recommend it for the females.


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## drdoolittle (Oct 29, 2011)

Thank you so much, elevan!!  I so appreciate your help and feel much better about doing this.  I definately will clip them down to the gum!


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## elevan (Oct 29, 2011)

I saw your pics on BYC.  Why don't you post a thread over here so all the BYH'ers can see?


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## drdoolittle (Oct 30, 2011)

elevan----there is a post on here with pics.----"Babies Are Here!"


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## elevan (Oct 30, 2011)

D'OH!  I must have missed that one...I'll go look.


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