My 2 guinea pigs brother are fighting and hurt each other..what should I do ?

[mypocketsarevide]

They are almost 1 year old. They have a massive hutch but we bringing them back at nigh because it's cold in a smaller cage. Yesterday I have noticed that one piggie (the smaller one) was bleeding under his nose following a scuffle with his brother. Following this, we separated them.

We just put them together again as they were looking sad, and the other piggie got hurt and is bleeding. They are again separated.

What should we do in the long term ?? Neuter them and introduce another piggie, possibly a girl ? I'm suggesting this because I heard that neutering them, wont help their behaviour but if you introduce another one, a girl. It will help.

I am at loss at what to do, they are clearly unhappy :-(

Ooh and neutered boars don't suffer so much with impaction according to the Guinea Websites.
So that might sway you in the favour of neutering+ girls?

I had 2 brothers together who had a quiet disinterest in each other until they were looked after by a friend who also had girl pigs. From the day I got them back they loathed each other and fought. It ended with one of them dying because I was not as aware as I should have been because they have the run of the whole garden.

I now have the other male minus his balls but with a female instead and they are so happy.

Easiest solution may be to pick your favourite. Give the other away. Neuter the boy and get him a GF.

I will never have 2 boys together again. Brothers or not.

Ah, that's one of the problems with males isn't it?

My original boars (I got them from a Rescue, they'd always been together).
When they went on holiday boarding, there were two sows in the 'holding' pen waiting to go home. My guineas were clucking away to them "hey, ladeez, you like "?

When my GP1 and my young piglet went to boarding (we'd booked the holiday and boarding months before we got him) I asked for them to be kept well away from girls because GP3 was going into his awkward stage and I didn't want their lovely relationship upset.
The came back fine and dandy (I'm hoping they missed us a bit )

Personally, I couldn't rehome either of the boars (not my place to really they belong to my DD) but we would divide their cage if they really couldn't live together, so they could see and smell each other.

I wouldn't introduce a girl with a view of them all living together, the competition for her affection will make it worse.

These brothers can no longer live together. You could try neutering them, but piggies aren't good under GA (we lost one minutes after he came round, he had GA for a diff op) so it is a huge risk for little reason, imo.

G pigs are not animals that have to be kept in pairs.

Neither of your pigs are nasty! That cage can easily be converted into 2 by removing the ladder & sealing the hole.

Stop reintroducing them, please.

i have just re-read this

how bad is the fighting? i am wondering if they are squabbling rather than full on fighting? even girls do that sometimes. hard to tell over the internet! mine will fight if they are both on my knee getting cuddles - jealousy - but are fine when put back together with the odd rumble at each other

how were they after their wash?

We used to use this cage and divider when we had two that would fight - the divider can go half way down and the cage is big enough to give them each enough space.

www.cagesworld.co.uk/p/Midwest_Divider_Panel_for_Guinea_Habitat.htm

The divider has a door you can open to let them have some time together.

Just re-read

If you neuter your boars with a view to getting sows, you'd need to keep the boars as part of their own 'group'
So you can have 1 boar with as many sows as you like but not 2 boars together with sows.
They would definately fight in that set up

(Thinks of 'PetSchool ' guinea 'Max' a neutered boar with IIRC 10 (or might be more) wifeys . Happy boar )

well at the moment, one is indoor and the other one out door and they don't seem to miss each other anymore. We will work on the problem more this week end.