More on Trimming Teeth
First note: See Trimming Teeth for disclaimer, comparison guide, etc. before proceeding. This one's just a
step-by-step of my thought process.
Second note: It really does take two people to trim a rat's teeth: One for restraint and one to trim. The girl pictured below was
uncomfortable and unhappy about the entire situation. Please have one person restrain and one person trim! Your rat will be happier, you'll end
up with less of a bloody mess, and it's simply less painful for you that way.
With her mouth closed, the bottom teeth are just touching the top of her mouth (not pictured). That's too long for her to eat solid hard foods.
As you can see, her bottom teeth are not flat but rather have a diagonal slant going from outside top to inside middle.
And, as you can see, her bottom teeth are splayed. Based on this and the fact that her teeth have a flat diagonal slant, you can assume that she
is drilling her teeth down however, because they are not together, she is only able to do so much.
Because the separation is there, trimming both at once will more than likely lead to an imprecise cut of both (they will shatter). As such, we are
going to trim them one at a time. It's easier to use these snips to cut
teeth one at a time but she doesn't like those snips so we're doing it the hard way (with these snips).
I've looked for where the tooth becomes opaque (see arrows, above) to determine where to cut but since she's also trimming them down herself,
I'm going to be a little conservative. I'm cutting right at the end of the line where she's obviously drilled them down to herself.
The tooth on the left has been cut and I'm now going to trim the right one. Notice that I'm making sure her tongue's not between the snips and her
tooth.
On the left you can see the tooth I've already trimmed. On the right I've rotated the clips so the curvature of the snips match the curvature of
the tooth itself. It would be good to even up those top teeth to help her get a better, straighter, grind on those bottom teeth but because the
top teeth are already so short, I can't do that.
tip: When navigating through the RatTails,
clicking on the image that looks like the image above
will take you back to this table of contents!
Disclaimer: There are many non-sarcastic accounts and tips on the web regarding rat care. This is not
one of them. These are merely accounts of our experiences with rats, our perceptions of these experiences, where we've failed
and where we've succeeded. These accounts are here for two purposes:
2) To help avoid repetition of mistakes
Remember! Your rat is not a science project, he is your friend!
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