Hello! I do hope I'm posting this in the proper forum.
I have two boars (Maple and Steve) living in a 2x6 C&C with a grid barrier down the middle, because they didn't get along well enough to be together (or rather, because I panicked over possibly minor squabbles and was afraid to reintroduce them with a better setup. But right now would be a terrible time to reintroduce them anyway, so that's another matter for another time).
Recently I've been worrying a lot about about Maple's teeth (again, that's another matter), and so I've been noticing just how much they chew on the bars. Of course, Maple has been chewing on the bars of all of the cages I've had him in for the whole 4 years I've had him, and I assume it is--to an extent--just a normal behavior. But thanks to my barrier setup, they now chew on the bars A LOT.
Steve started it. He wasn't so happy about being separated from Maple, so in the first few weeks he gnawed on the barrier almost constantly (or that's what it felt like, at least). Eventually he became more used to the setup, and Maple became more used to him, and the bar-chewing became a form of communication. When one of the pigs wants the other's attention, he'll come to the barrier and chew the bars. It's usually the first thing Maple does after he's out of the cage for awhile, and Steve does it whenever he wants to show Maple how big he is (usually Maple ignores him). They also use the behavior to communicate with me when I'm taking too long to give them their treats.
So, my question is this: Could too much chewing of the bars damage their teeth? After all, it is metal, and they're chewing it a lot: Steve chewed the barrier so much right after the separation that it has dark marks where he wore all the paint off. I know that they can crack their incisors and stuff like that--though I think they actually chew the bars with their molars--and I just want to make sure my pigs aren't going to hurt themselves, now that biting metal is how they talk to each other. Is there something I can do about this, or am I just worrying over nothing?
I have two boars (Maple and Steve) living in a 2x6 C&C with a grid barrier down the middle, because they didn't get along well enough to be together (or rather, because I panicked over possibly minor squabbles and was afraid to reintroduce them with a better setup. But right now would be a terrible time to reintroduce them anyway, so that's another matter for another time).
Recently I've been worrying a lot about about Maple's teeth (again, that's another matter), and so I've been noticing just how much they chew on the bars. Of course, Maple has been chewing on the bars of all of the cages I've had him in for the whole 4 years I've had him, and I assume it is--to an extent--just a normal behavior. But thanks to my barrier setup, they now chew on the bars A LOT.
Steve started it. He wasn't so happy about being separated from Maple, so in the first few weeks he gnawed on the barrier almost constantly (or that's what it felt like, at least). Eventually he became more used to the setup, and Maple became more used to him, and the bar-chewing became a form of communication. When one of the pigs wants the other's attention, he'll come to the barrier and chew the bars. It's usually the first thing Maple does after he's out of the cage for awhile, and Steve does it whenever he wants to show Maple how big he is (usually Maple ignores him). They also use the behavior to communicate with me when I'm taking too long to give them their treats.
So, my question is this: Could too much chewing of the bars damage their teeth? After all, it is metal, and they're chewing it a lot: Steve chewed the barrier so much right after the separation that it has dark marks where he wore all the paint off. I know that they can crack their incisors and stuff like that--though I think they actually chew the bars with their molars--and I just want to make sure my pigs aren't going to hurt themselves, now that biting metal is how they talk to each other. Is there something I can do about this, or am I just worrying over nothing?