Male Guinea Pigs fighting

[twigsblankets]

My friend has 2 male guinea pigs that have just started fighting. They are drawing blood and neither will 'give' in. They can't be seperated at the moment, so help for my friend pleaseeeeeeeeee???

we had the same thing happen, we had to seperate them and keep them in seperate hutches. they can and probably will seriously hurt/kill each other if they aren't seperated.

it is a common thing.they will live happily seperate and be more friendly, well mine have anyway.

wish her luck

Tell her to wrap her hand in a towel to push them apart, and then lift one out with the towel. Stick him in a box for now if there's only one hutch.

Very unusually, I had 2 females who fell out like this. It's not pretty.

2 males g pigs are known to fight. best to separate them.

thats why i had 2 lots of females ones and they never fighted

Huh. My boys get on like a house on fire, but their mother and auntie fought like dogs.

There's always someone has to be different.

I know male guinea pigs fight but what I cannot understand is how they manage to keep dozens and dozens of males together at Hatton Farm Guinea Pig Village (near Stratford upon Avon)without them fighting. Is it just when theres two that this happens?

Most interesting. I know females live in colonies in the wild, where presumably if two fall out they can just keep out of each other's way, but you'd think males would be constantly vying to be top pig. Maybe it's OK if they're never exposed to a female - but can you imagine the bloodbath if someone accidentally popped in a little girl?

I can't remember what lads do in the wild - someone borrowed our book.

Thank you all so much for your replies. I have advised my friend accordingly.

Our two started to fight like this - one had an ear ripped off. Our Vet said they may well eat each other's testicles if left! Since they were only young we followed her advice and had them castrated in the hope they would then get on. However, six months later they still cannot be trusted to share a hutch. When they are out in a biggish run they will just about tolerate each other, but any closer than that and it all breaks out again. I'm hoping they will settle down with age!

They must be separated. I had two boys living together for about 2yrs...quite happy until one decided he'd had enough so started picking on the other one. I got them separated but because they were in such a huge hutch I just put a wire mesh divide in which stopped them fighting and they'd snuggle up together with the divide separating them! If pigs fight they will bite and this can easily result in an abscess...one of my pigs ended up like this and after having an operation to drain the abscess all seemed ok but then he developed a secondary abscess and died. So sad.