2 Male Brothers Fighting

[GuineaPigKing]

Hi All,

This is my first post and asking for advice. I have two male guinea pigs (8 months old approx) and these are the first two guinea pigs I've owned. They have a living area with plenty of space, two bowls, two water bottles, plenty of hay and plenty of places to hide such as little guinea pig houses. I've been buying toys regularly so they don't get bored and have a run outside in the garden aswell to keep them active.

Anyway, after approximately two months of owning them i caught them fighting and biting each other. I stopped this instantly and they didn't go near each other for a few days. They then seemed to make up and spent time together before fighting again a few days later with one of them having a very big cut on him. I tookl him to the vet and upon investigation, he had been bitten several times with approximately 6-7 bite wound marks on him without me noticing him (((. At this point I decided to seperate them. The other guinea pig had no wound marks. I seperated them for a weeks and then re introduced them in a new neutral area, upping the amount of space, food and water for them. I watched over them as the previously injured one chattered his teeth at the other piggie. After about 20 minutes, they then had another fight. Both seemed equal in instigating the fight but the previously injured guinea pig came off much worse after about a 5 second biting fight. Lots of blood etc.. it was awful. I've obviously seperated them and decided against ever reintroducing them.

My question is this - why do you reckon they're fighting?

And what should I do next? I see my three options as they follwing:
1) Permantely seperate them in the cage. They'll both live alone unfortunately then but would be able to hear, smell and speak to each other through a mesh divider wall.
2) Return the uninjured guinea pig who appears to be winning all the fights.
3) Return the uninjured guinea pig and replace him with another guinea pig as I don't want my piggie lonely. I'm just worried that if I do this, the piggies may not get along with each other again and fight.

Thoughts/Suggestions?

FYI: The Injured Guinea Pig is really friendly and likes to be held etc. The uninjured piggie doesn't like to held and is still very nervous.

 

[Piggies&buns]

and I’m sorry to hear this.

They are fighting because they are sadly not character compatible - this is the number one cause of falls outs. Sadly there is nothing you can do about that - piggies either get on or they don’t.
At their age they are hormonal teenagers (teens is 4 to 14 months of age) and this is when any incompatibilities are most likely come to light. Being the same age can also mean they go through the same hormone spikes at the same time which increases the intensity.
The second consideration is space. You say a large cage but you don’t say how big it actually was when they lived together. Boars need a lot more room and although character compatibility is the main cause of fall outs, space related issues is the second.
The third consideration is dead ends in the cage ie enclosed hides with only one exit. These can cause issues and we always advise hides have two doors in them so no piggy can get trapped by the other.

After even one fight which causes blood drawing injury then they need to be permanently separated and not reintroduced. One fight is enough to determine that they aren’t compatible and any reintroduction after such a fight is pretty much guaranteed to fail.
Now they have now had several fights, it’s certain they aren’t compatible and you are absolutely right that they definitely cannot be reintroduced.

They can remain living as neighbours in a divided cage permanently. This will give them interaction through the bars and is a perfectly fine way of living.

Option 2 is not appropriate as it means you will have only one piggy who will not have any other pig in the room. He will get lonely.
Option 3. Is an option should you wish to go down that route. We would advise you to surrender a piggy you cannot keep to a rescue centre (bearing in mind a lot are full to the brim at present).
You would then need to get another piggy to keep your piggy company. You would be highly advised to do so via dating at a rescue centre as they will help ensure the new piggy and the one you keep are compatible so won’t fall out. The issue is that, and while not impossible, your boys are teenagers and bonding teenage boars is not always the easiest thing to do.
If you were to go just go out and buy another piggy from a pet shop as a companion for the one you keep them you are risking another fall out/separated piggies as you would have no way of knowing they would be compatible before committing to another piggy.

All in all, option 1 is perfectly fine to do and the common course of action to take after piggies have to be separated.

For them to live side by side as neighbours each piggy needs a space of 120x60cm or a 2x3 c&c cage as a minimum but obviously bigger is better.

Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

 

[flowerfairy]

Some great advice. Nothing to add but wanted to say how sorry I am that your boys fell out. I have a neutered boar and a sow. There were more sows but they have gradually passed away over the years.

My boar (Cufflinks) had to live next door to the sows until 6 weeks after his neuter. When I introduced them all (on neutral ground) it was very smooth and they were back in their rearranged and cleaned out cage within hours.

You sound like you did all the right things to help them get along. Hope you find a happy solution.

 

[weepweeps]

I’m so sorry they don’t want to live together anymore. It is sad but they will be fine living as neighbours as long as you have the space for two cages.