Backstory:
On April 4th we took in a 3 year old intact sow, renamed Piglet, who was missing both upper incisors.
Her owner took her to the vet when finding her drooling and thin due to her massively overgrown lowers. She'd been on a diet of 100% pellets, no hay, only the very rare baby carrot or bit of romaine.
Click for big.
The owner surrendered her to the vet once they found out the cost and time of rehabbing the poor girl. She had her lowers trimmed and all the spurs taken off her molars, then the vet called me and asked if we could take her. I'm a sucker.
The vet wanted to extract the lower incisors. I said no, I want to see if the uppers would re-grow. They said the X-ray showed no sign of upper tooth buds, it ain't gonna happen. I said let's give it a few months, we'll trim in the interim.
Well, three trims and 2.5 months later there's still no upper teeth. I agree to let the vets extract the lowers. The surgery goes great, she eats like a horse the moment we get her home. However, her right eye was injured during her recovery - when we picked her up it was dry-looking, with a red abrasion. I made the vet re-examine her and he thinks she must have rubbed against the towel while waking up. She's on some antibiotic eye drops, but she's actively scratching at it and we have to stop that.
The vet has fashioned a temporary e-collar out of X-ray film (none on hand are small enough). I don't like that idea because I know how they interfere with cecal consumption and even regular eating. Poor girl doesn't need to have her eating interfered with (all she will eat is a CC/pellet/babyfood/pumpkin slurry, no hay except an occasional tiny leaf of alfalfa). But what else can I do to keep her feet out of her eye for a few days?
I've considered designing a one-sided e-collar: basically a giant rectangle to the right only, but open to the left and bottom. Not sure this would help. Worst case scenario, I leave the e-collar on, and hand feed her via syringe (including cecals) 24/7. I'll do that if it comes to it. But I'm hoping someone else will have a better, easier idea.
Anyone?
They're sitting on a GL weight sheet, so that should give you some size reference by the size of those printed boxes. The blue lines roughly indicate where the gumline was.
