Ok, here is where I am coming from and by all means argue with me on this all you want. I am not going to respond to it further â it is your rats and you do whatever you want with them.
I am always a 100% supporter of providing rats with necessary vet care in order to ensure that they remain healthy and happy and live the longest lives that they possibly can. However, I always balance the risks of every procedure against just how it will improve the rats quality of life.
I will only ever, EVER have any rodents teeth trimmed under two circumstances.
1. The rodent suffers from malocclusion and without trimming their teeth on a regular basis they run the risk of their teeth puncturing the insides of their mouths and causing life threatening damage. To tell you the truth, with this case I would rather consider having the rats teeth surgically and permanently removed based on their age and health, than cause them the stress of having them trimmed all their lives. I have only had two rodents ever, one rat and one Syrian hamster, that fell into this category. Totem, the rat, only had them trimmed once because he was close to the end of his life and he died naturally before he needed to have them trimmed again; and Abby, the Syrian hamster, who had to have them trimmed every two to three weeks for the remainder of her life which was about a year after I adopted her.
2. The rodent is no longer able to eat any hard foods themselves and run the risk of starving or dying of malnutrition. I have never had any cases where this has occurred, and I am sure that out of the 60+ rodents (rats and Syrians) that I have had there have been plenty where their teeth might have been considered longer than average. This has probably occurred most often when I have had an ill or recovering rat who has not been eating properly and whose diet I have been supplementing with softer foods because they have not been well. As the rat has felt better and recovered, they have trimmed the excess overgrown teeth themselves over time, and then gone back to maintaining them normally.
Over the years I have heard of many cases where people have had their rats teeth trimmed, necessarily or unnecessarily is irrelevant, and an accident has occurred during the procedure that has resulted in a tremendous amount of sometimes irreversible damage being done.
There have been cases of splintering, cases where the teeth have been completely broken, cases where the rat has had such extensive pain and bleeding that it was a horror show and the rat would not eat after leaving the vets office.
Those rat owners have either had to face having their rats teeth trimmed either for the rest of the rats life, in which case they have had the rat destroyed, or trimmed regularly for a considerable amount of time just to get them to the point where they were all growing normally and the rat could go back to keeping them maintained themselves.
Accidents can occur during this procedure regardless of how extensive your vets knowledge of rodents is, how many times they have performed the procedure, and the tools that have been used to perform the procedure. You can have the very best vet combined with the very best of equipment, and still there is a risk that you can do more damage to their mouths that the teeth really were at risk of doing prior to the procedure.
I would always, always allow a rat to trim their teeth naturally and try all other options for normal teeth trimming before having them trimmed by any vet. As long as they are eating normally and are active and happy, and do not risk having the teeth do damage to the insides of their mouths, then chances are that the rat will eventually wear them down themselves or they are getting along just fine having them a bit longer than necessary.
Now, if the rat whose teeth were trimmed was not eating hard foods properly, was acting as if they were in pain or discomfort from the length of their teeth, or were running the risk of damage to the insides of their mouths, then I apologize. It was absolutely a necessary procedure that the vet did.
Any vet that I would consider to be a good one would look at all other options before manually trimming their teeth because they are aware of the risks of the procedure and do not take it lightly. They would look upon this procedure as a last resort and not a first resort. It has been my experience that those vets that I consider the top of the line when it comes to rat care have always taken that route and left the trimming as a solution that was unavoidable in the end.
I just want to edit this to include one other thing.
Looking back on the very first post on this topic, it was never mentioned that there were any problems with this rats teeth, no mention of bleeding or anything was brought up (which I would not have failed to mention had it been the case), only that...
Bronwyn said:
One of the techs told me that Elphie "really deperately needed" her teeth trimmed.
Which was why I responded the way I did, and as strongly as I did, and I stand by my initial response 100% based on the information provided. Had it been mentioned, in the first post, that the rats mouth had been bleeding and she couldn't close her mouth properly, then I probably wouldn't have responded the way I did. Plus, I wasn't the only one who responded that they questioned the knowledge of the staff, so it is not like I missed some information or misunderstood.
If people want accurate advice, and advice that they want to hear, then they need to include all relevant information to obtain it.
Her gums were starting to bleed and she couldn't close her mouth. I know they always look long, but of all the rats I've owned hers were by far the longest. Brie, for example, had "normal" length, if not just a little bit too long but nothing problematic. She was checked out by a vet, the techs were merely passing along information Bev was too busy to give (it was mayhem when I got there).
