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Rescue guinea pigs keep fighting! Help!

2 replies

HeckinMiffed · 08/01/2022 03:49

Last week we adopted two unwanted guinea pigs. Two year old boars, one bigger than the other. cute wee chaps.
We're experienced small/medium pet owners but never had guineas before so its been a learning curve! They're in a rabbit cage inside with two houses (they were fighting over the one) fed in seperate piles, space to tootle and plenty hay/food.
The wee gits won't stop fighting! big one humping wee one which I can understand is nor mal behaviour. but the scuffles, the teeth chattering, the angry squeaks-tonight its been constant.
I've given up and seperated them in the cage using rabbits' hutch door! just to calm them down!
Do we need to neuter one/both? I do expect some tussles/posturing for dominance/wee scraps occasionally but this seems excessive.
They do get out and are cleaned but we haven't handled them much yet as we wanted them to settle.
They're chilled now, munching calmly. Has anyone any advice on pig behaviour please?

OP posts:
AlphaAlpha · 08/01/2022 04:08

We had 2 boys we adopted together, i thought I was doing the right thing providing 2 'sleeping' houses but they fought too! 2 very fraught weeks and I was ready to give up until I phoned a pig rescue place.
Best advice I was given was to remove the houses and fill their sleeping bit with loads of hay so there was no fighting and it worked. One was still dominant but less aggressive and they settled.
Sadly we lost one a couple of months ago and we now have just the one very happy and pampered piggie.

MissRainbowBrite · 09/01/2022 15:32

They are most likely trying to establish dominance in their new setting. How big is the hutch? Boars need more space then sows and like to have space to get away from each other. Has blood been drawn? If not you should probably just leave them to sort themselves out but once they've drawn blood there's no going back and I'm afraid they can't live together.

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