tips for nail clipping

[kalrik]

What are people's techniques for nailing clipping? I was cliipping Mouse's nails today with my left thumb under her chin to hold her right paw and I was clipping with my right hand, and she bit me and drew blood. good thing I didn't mess up and hurt her.

 

[ILovePiggies]

~ Some where on this forum someone said that you could clip their nails through the bars of the cage. I tried it and it worked once but I can never get her to stay put long enough... You could try it though. I hope no one minds me re-stating peoples ideas here. Some one else typed something about putting your guinea pig on a tennis racket. Never tried that though... Maybe try searching the forum with key words like 'nail clipping' heehee. Well if anyone else out there has heard something or knows something helpful, could you tell us? Thanks!

 

[Treen]

A couple of links you may find useful.

https://guinealynx.info/nails.html
(broken link removed)

 

[pennick]

I do it at lap time. I just clip the tippy tip part. Whether its one nail or more. Whatever she lets me do. About every 6 weeks my daughter helps me. I hold the piggy and she does the cutting.

 

[Slap Maxwell]

I put my hand under their stomach and hold each paw, and clip just the tips off.

 

[Piglet]

Put the pig on a tennis racket and clip from underneath

 

[kalrik]

If I hold her front paw in anyway she bites me. The tennis racket sounds like a great idea though, I am going to give it a try. thanks guy.

 

[Denise]

Very interesting idea, Piglet.

 

[sasha]

I have used the tennis racket thing, which works great as long as you have some veggies on the front of the racket, and someone extra to hold it while you clip. For my pigs back nails I will sometimes just grab their back feet while they are eating veggies in my lap, and they usually tolerate it. Food is the only thing you absolutely have to do!

 

[Piglet]

Yup, you need a person to hold the racket (of course!) and lots and lots of veggies to act as a distraction

 

[suzy_99]

I personally don't have any trouble clipping their nails. I just grab one paw at a time during lap time and gently clip their nails. I try to position myself in a way that I am not terribly bugging them, by only lifting their foot up maybe a centimeter or half an inch, which can make it a little harder for me, but it works. My trick is that I use normal nailclippers. I cannot use cat nail clippers, I have tried many times and it never works out.

 

[Piglet]

Does anybody have a pig with black nails? I can't cut furlongs nails because they are black so I have no ideas where the quik ends

 

[suzy_99]

One of mine has all black nails and the others have half and half. I just cut the very tips off, but I cut them more often, about once a week, so that the quicks will recede. It adds up to being the same amount cut off the white nails after a while.

 

[guineagurl]

I have the same problem, one of mine has really dark black nails and I can't see where the bloodvein is either, and he bites me alot now so I have left it a tad longer than I should have but he's a bugger~
Normally he only nips but the other day he took a chunk of skin from my finger..
I thought piggies rarely bite? I don't ever hurt him so why is he so aggressive to me, he's not even like that with my kids , just me! And I'm the one who adores him..Go figure!

 

[kalrik]

Yeah. This was the first time I got bit. I had no idea that it hurt so much, because I have been npped before and it was just annoying, but this time I feel like there is a bruise there and it bled when it first happen. Ouch. I have one with all black nails, I am too afraid to cut them. He was at the vet a couple months ago who cut them. I am just going to clip the tips off more often.

 

[sasha]

Jane has black nails, and when I got her they were growing kinda sideways and curly because she was at least four months old and they had never been cut. I did clip too far when I was trying to figure it out, but nothing serious. I have found that if you start with the longest one, and keep kinda shaving off the tiniest little bit, you will notice a change in the color, which will help you know when you are getting closer. Just remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, you have to work at cutting back black nails when the quick has grown too long.

 

[guineagurl]

So does that mean that for some reason that "quick" or bloodvein as I called it, can grow too far so making it harder to cut? And does small snips off the tips help to avoid this somehow? I dread cutting his nails and it really is due to be done, theyr'e getting sharp.

 

[pennick]

Yes I have read that if you just do tiny clips often it will make the black vein move further back. the longer you let the nails to grow the further down the black vein will go making it harder to cut. Thats what I do. I just clip as many as I can when I have lap time. I just do the very tip.

 

[sasha]

The blood vessel wil recede with frequent small clippings. Unfortunately that takes time, it took about 6 months to get Jane's nails to look like I hadn't rotated them 90 degrees with a pair of pliers. There is still one that grows as if it is growing kinda sideways, but she was caged on wire before I got her, and that one nail may never be normal.

 

[kalrik]

I am so glad to hear that because my one boy's nails are slightly curled even though they were clipped by a vet pretty recently. He is almost all black and I am really worried about cutting them. I am going to do that tip off only thing and hopefully they will look normal one day. How often did you clip her nails? Once a week or more frequent?