AIBU to keep all 5?

[StudentHelp]

Recently lost my lovely neutered boar piggy who was 6.5 to a terrible end.
I was looking online but not for a new pet and found someone looking to rehome a guinea pig with her two babies due to terrible circumstances.

I’m a vet student so I was busy at university but my parents picked them up for me (a bit further away than they expected at almost 140 miles round trip!).

In the event of them both being boys as I already have sows, I had spoken to another vet student who has boars and would like another. Well, one week later and I’ve fallen in love with not only mummy pig but her two MALE babies!

AIBU to keep my two original sows, mummy pig and 2 baby boars making a total of 5?
I’ve had pigs my whole life and they’re my whole world but 5 is a new one for me (as an adult). My girls currently have a 2.5 metre cage and the boys wouldn’t go without.

What do you think?
My mam’s currently making noises about rehoming one and neutering the other but he’d have to be isolated for 5 months (before surgery and during recovery) so surely it’s best just to keep them both intact

Massively outing if anyone recognised me but oh well!

Forgot to add if they fight due to smelling sows etc I’m very prepared to have 3 cages, neuter boys and have one with mum (Martha) and one with my two original girls as I know neutering doesn’t change behaviour so they couldn’t all go in together!

I once had 13 gerbils simultaneously. Two unplanned litters before they were all sexed and separated.

So I'm not the best person to ask.

They're very cute.

Wow! 13?!

They are very cute, which makes it much harder but I think I knew all along they’d be staying

Here are my ‘original girls’ for reference

The boars would need to be kept well away from the sows up until neutering time ( which as you say is 5+ months depending on their weight and health to go through surgery and recovery )
Then you could have two lovely groups , maybe Mum+ neutered boar and your original sows + the other neutered boar .

But ..................there's no cast iron guarentee they'd get on.
I had a B/S/S group (the sows had lost their previous boar and we needed a nice lardy male pig ) .
I got a pair of sows to add (bringing my total to 5) but one of the new sows fought (and I mean proper all out rage) with our soppy boy .

So we kept a 3+2 set up .
Keeping 5 isn't much more work than 2 .

Your friend who wants the baby boar does know that boar trios are hard work, yes?
Much more potential for scrapping , and as you rightly say , neutering does not affect their thinking .

But neutering removes the risk of impaction...............

You can tell I'm steerng you along the lines of keeping all 5 can't you .

#enabler

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

I know they’d need to be separated yes and my friend had 3 boar pairs but sadly lost one just under 2 weeks ago so has 5 including a lonely boy currently.

If she’d had a sow and a boar it’d have been easier as they could’ve (hopefully) all been in together once he was neutered but since the babies are both boars it makes it more difficult as I don’t massively want two of them to go through the op if they don’t have to!

My old boy had a lump removal and was neutered at the same time so it didn’t seem so bad.
The original girls + boar and mum + boar was exactly the pairing I had been thinking.

My mam has had guinea pigs for about 40 years so is really experienced and I’ve never had less than 2 myself but I guess with experience you’re more aware of the risks.

Forgot about this thread.

Yes. We rehomed the school gerbils and then one sadly died. The pet shop assured us that the replacement we bought was female to go with the remaining female. But it wasn't. We didn't even know she was pregnant until we found the first litter. Then she was already pregnant again by this point.

It all turned out ok. I was only a teenager at the time and my life was dominated by gerbils for quite a while!

I had my first pigs over 45 years ago , back in them days (prehistoric) they were Smooth or Abby .

They were invariably kept alone
Mis-sexed (my 1st pig was sold as a female . 2nd pig was female . Result was a litter as Pig 1 was a boy )
Or (as in the case of Pig 1) kept in PetShops with a cage of rabbits .
Usually in a hutch and fed carrots

Your new piggies are long haired by the looks of Mum and their gorgeous crinkly coats .

Your sows I'm thinking possibly Swiss ? (especially the white/beige piggie)
Such exotic new breeds now . We had a Rex and a Teddy . I had a ruby eyed crested Himmy (the pigs DD and I had were all Rescues)

We lost our last old girl in April. We'd managed to marry her off to the boar (after her female cagemate died ). We had them indoors all winter that year so carefully arranged a Darby'n'Joan Wedding .

He was delighted . She was very much "You'll do I suppose" and they were very sweet but it was a long road till they finally got together

She died without ceremony 3 days after being given the all clear for a nasty eye ulcer that was touch and go if she'd keep the eye .
DD and I were administering the drops and gel and cleaning.
She got the ok on the Friday and decided on the Sunday night this was Time !

I do miss the Pigs but they were hard work, complex and very messy little animals

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

The lilac, saffron and white girl (or otherwise the one on the right) of my originals is a minipli which is considered a breed now but was formed from lunkarya crossed with alpaca. They’re pedigree pigs that didn’t make the grade for showing but I don’t mind at all!

The black and white girl is a lunkarya, as are the other 3! They’re pedigrees and were (as far as I know) responsibly bred, if you’re not against breeding completely that is, their previous owner just had a terrible change in circumstances.

When I was younger I always had smooth coated piggies but my last boy was a Peruvian and he made me fall in love with the long haired varieties. My mam thinks they’re too much work though

@bitheby
Glad it all turned out okay! Pet shops can be terrible for that sort of thing and they very rarely seem to volunteer to help people out with all the extra babies.

After buying two "female" mice I ended up with 20. The actual female got pregnant again by the male as soon as she'd given birth to the litter I discovered. I kept them all until they died. 6 different cages and military cleaning out operations. Also not the best person to ask, but I am shit hot at sexing mice now.

@indemMUND

That made me laugh about being shit hot at sexing them. Piggies are usually quite easy to sex many people don’t realise how young they need to be separated from mum.

Seems like lots of people have had more animals than they bargained for due to mis-sexing

Are you planning to specialise in Small Furries?
It is essential as a Pig Owner to find a Small Animal Vet , not a general vet who much prefers cats or dogs and regards guinea-pigs and rabbits as small scraps of annoying schreeching fur .

I was to overhear a Vet tell the Vet Receptionist that guineas pigs were spiteful and they stink.
(I went for the jugular)
"No they only stink if the animal husbandary is poor and they only bite if they are really driven to it"
Even when one of our boars was having injections and saline infusions , he never lashed out , just a pathetic wheeek
When our boar was dying he whiffed a bit but we kept his little bum clean as much as he'd tolerate to prevent pee scald.

Long haired are way too much for me too. I had one (accidental) Peruvian. She looked like any other pig when I got her , but her coat grew like Topsy

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

I’m hoping to be a small animal vet with an interest in rodents when I graduate. I’d love to be a ‘Guinea pig vet’ but it takes a lot of time to build up rapport to get the client base and I’d have to do some further qualifications first such as a certificate, I imagine.

But also, I love dogs etc too so wouldn’t mind working with all the small furries (and cows ).

I agree that piggies only tend to bite when driven to it, a lot of owners a shockingly bad at reading dog body language, never mind a piggy’s! I think people don’t tend to respect them as much as they can’t do as much damage to a human.
Although, I will say, one of my current girls hates her bum touched and will give a nip if she’s not in the mood but it’s not a real bite as I know if I feel her teeth she could’ve done much worse than a little nip with no broken skin.

It’s horrible when they get old and sit in their wee they usually still enjoy veggies and pellets but don’t have as much bladder control/can’t be bothered to move. It doesn’t take much for their feet to get sore/hair to get sodden and then they often don’t enjoy the cleaning either but it’s got to be done.

Soooooooooo.................... you are keeping^ the pigletty ones , aren'y you

At one stage I had 6 piggies, 2 boys 4 girls. I had the boys neutered and they all lived quite happily together, as long as their living quarters are big enough with lots of hide holes and places to escape too then I think keeping a herd is a great thing, nothing breaks my heart more than seeing guinea pigs being kept by themselves in solitary confinement :-(

@70isaLimitNotaTarget
They’re definitely staying although I’m stuck at uni because of the boys as the cage I ordered to my non-term time address (home) for them hasn’t been delivered yet and their huge cage at uni really won’t fit in my tiny C1 with all my stuff.
I’m hoping my dad can build the cage I’ve ordered, the ferplast 160 which is a lot smaller than I’d usually have for 2 boys but it was a very sudden move home (Thanks Coronavirus) and they are only 3 weeks old. It’s over the minimum but they love popcorning and running around so hopefully I can extend it at some point if we’re back until the end of September.

@DimplesToadfoot
That’s lucky they didn’t fight over the girls! I’d love to have them all together but don’t think I could risk It. I’d be open to a Boar/Sow pairing and a Boar/Sow/Sow trio though.
But mum just met my girls this weekend and they’re getting along brilliantly and she’s really come out of her shell so Im also not keen on splitting them if I don’t have to.

Here are some updated photos