Baby Guinea Pig Help......

[braz2kuk]

Hi,

We have an 8 month old boy guinea pig called Jet, he used to live with Daphne who is 2 years old, when Daphne got pregnant we separated them. Anyway Daphne gave birth to two babies one boy and one girl. This was 2 weeks 2 days ago. they have been living very happily with their mum, however now the little boy has started rumbling and attempting to mount the girls, but he is only 2 weeks 2 days old! We have attempted putting him in with his father as we do not want any pregnancies to occur however his father (Jet) has tried to mount him, and is chasing him around making rumbling noises is this distressing to the little one? also is it dangerous at all to him?

Thanks in advance

 

[georgie-porgie]

When two males mount its usualy a dominance thing, so dont be worried. Some people say that you should let them carry on and get it out of their system BUT when my male Charlie mounts George, George gets anoyed ! They sometimes start to fight. Usualy I make a POP sound with my mouth to distract Charlie but if this dosent work I have to take him off. When your boys chase around the cage, this is also dominance and you can leave them to it, I do with my boys but if you see a fight aproching, I usualy separate my 2 and let them cool down for a bit. If your pup is trying to mount the girls, this [as far as I know] is normal. He will always try to mate with all sows [females] even their mother sometimes. This is why people usualy separate boys and girls into pairs of same sex cavies [guinea pigs]. You could [if you are worried about Jet and your pup fighting] get the pup sprayed or nuetered to stop him breeding with the girlsand/or mother.

I hope this helps,
Alan, George and Charlie

 

[piggiesforever]

You are right to seperate him from mum and sister since he will impregnate them,however when you say you have put him in with dad do you mean in dads cage?, The introduction of boars can be tricky and must be carried out on neutral territory maybe let them play on the floor/run together and watch them carefully mounting is not really anything to be alarmed about or chasing or attempts to keep nose higher than others just have lots of food and distractions around them fingers crossed baby will bow down to daddys dominance and they will be happy together. If a fight does indeed break out do not use hand to seperate them have a towel handy

 

[marias_email]

Do you have means to keep the baby boar seperate for now>? You do need to introduce dad and baby slowly on neutral territory for a few days, and then give the hutch a really thorough clean and put baby in first then dad, hopefully they may get on then. x

 

[Poison]

Its not uncommon for an older boar to mount a younger one who has just been seperated from his mama. Your little boy still smells of his mummy, and his dad can smell female on him and so is mounting him. Sometimes yeah it can be a dominance thing, but in this situation I think its because he smells of his mom. So maybe put the little boar in a seperate cage next to his dad, that way they can see each other and once he stops smelling of his mom you can introduce them.

To introduce just put them on neutral territory together, and have a towel at hand for in case they fight. An older boar will usually accept a younger one, so you shouldn't have many problems. Do this over a long period of time and once you think their gonna be okay with each other, clean the cage and stick the two boys in together, make sure the cage has lots of little hidey holes for the younger pig and keep an eye on them for the first days of them being housed together.

If worst comes to worse and they refuse to get on, have the boys neutered and put a girl in with each of them so neither of them are lonely, or keep them in seperate cages next to each other.

Good luck

 

[braz2kuk]

Thanks for all the info guys, it has proved very helpful, we had them out before and they seem to be getting on ok will keep doing this until they are comfortable enough to be housed together