Pot belly big tooth care

Question
Hello,

We have a 9 year old female pot belly pig, Samantha. Her bottom center teeth have grown longer than her other teeth and  when she roots the teeth are scraping furniture, etc. What can we do to shorten her teeth so that she's safer? Is there any type of tooth file that we can use at home to gradually shorten her teeth? She lives in the house but we do take her outside when the weather is nice here in Wisconsin.

Thank you.

Answer
Hi,

Older pot-bellied pigs often grow long, scary looking under bites.

Pot-bellied pigs have two sets of baby teeth, and a final set of adult teeth. There's two kinds of adult teeth. Tusks and normal teeth. Males grow long tusks, females tusks stay short and look more like the canine teeth in a cat.

Tusks are different from the normal teeth. The tusks are actually ivory, the same as elephant, walrus, or rhinoceros tusks. Tusks have no blood veins or nerves, and continue to grow as long as the animal lives.

The normal teeth are, well, normal teeth. Breaking or filing them can be very painful and dangerous resulting in a tooth infection.

One alternative is to provide her with a rooting box where she can dig to her hearts content without damaging anything. Choose a large box or plastic bin and fill it with hard rubber balls or smooth river rocks, or something similar. Make sure at least one side is shallow enough for her to step in. Entice her to use it by sprinkling a few bits of piggy food around inside it.

If you have a place that is easy to rinse clean, like a washroom or garage, you could even use potting soil in the rooting box. Be warned that potting soil is VERY dirty and your pig will be VERY dirty after rooting in it, but she will enjoy the taste and smell of the soil. A cleaner alternative is to sprinkle a bit of soil over the rocks or balls.