3 year old pigs teeth chattering

[maddieisaac]

Our guinea pigs are 3 years old and well bonded. The less dominant one has recently been teeth chattering at the other one and they have both been making unhappy squeak noises. They went through a period last year where a similar thing happened and we solved it with getting them an additional extra hide away. Any ideas why they might be doing this? They’re 2 boys

 

[Pantalaimon]

A certain amount of tooth chattering is normal, just like with humans, guinea pigs will have disagreements and get frustrated with each other.
It becomes an issue when it involves active aggression (biting/lunging) or if one is stopping the other from accessing food or is causing excessive stress.
How much space do they have access to 100% of the time?
Did you notice these behaviours around a certain time? (Such as cleaning out, feeding, placing one back in the cage etc.)
Are there any other pigs around?

 

[maddieisaac]

A certain amount of tooth chattering is normal, just like with humans, guinea pigs will have disagreements and get frustrated with each other.
It becomes an issue when it involves active aggression (biting/lunging) or if one is stopping the other from accessing food or is causing excessive stress.
How much space do they have access to 100% of the time?
Did you notice these behaviours around a certain time? (Such as cleaning out, feeding, placing one back in the cage etc.)
Are there any other pigs around?

They have access to all of their cage all of the time! I changed the layout around and they seem slightly happier but they just did it to me when I was giving them their food. It’s hard to know if they do it in the day at all as we work but I’ve noticed it last at night. They recently went into boarding as we went on holiday and they were in the same shed as loads of female pigs and they haven’t quite been the same since they came home so we wonder if that has something to do with it

 

[Pantalaimon]

Being around females has the potential to cause conflict between boars, even having an item that has been near a sow has the potential to cause a fallout. They smell the sow and their instincts to compete for mating take over and they will fight.

How big is their cage exactly? Sorry I didn’t word that very clearly in my last post.

I don’t have enough experience or knowledge to be able to advise you on what you can do to avoid a worse falling out. I would think that you should take extra measures to ensure there are no small things that set it off such as one entrance hides (including deep enclosed beds) or anywhere else one could get trapped by the other, new items in the cage, complete cleanings, removing one from the cage for a prolonged period or having time out of the cage in a new environment.

Most guides I have read seem to say that tooth chattering is annoyance, I believe there are at least two very different kinds of tooth chattering. One when they want food and another as a display of annoyance (a sort of warning) with each other.