Bonding Issue

[morgan cochran]

Hi all,
I have a female adult peruvian guinea pig who was bonded to a male who recently passed. She was pinning so i decided id look into getting her a friend. I read that bonding an adult female with a baby female is best so i got 2 baby females (american).

I have started the bonding process and had one of the babys out qith the adult today. The baby wasnt too fussed and just sat still. The adult wouldnt stop chattering her teeth and tried mounting the baby and was nipping her. I was worried because the adult is alot bigger than the baby. Can anyone offer some advice to bonding all 3 of them?

Thanks
morgan

 

[sport_billy]

Hello,

Welcome to the forum.

Tagging in our bonding expert for you @Wiebke

 

[Wiebke]

Hi and welcome!

Sows can be bonded with other sows or neutered boar of any age and breed. The key is whether they click or not.

Please give your sow and new girls time to get to know each other through the bars (at least a day or longer if necessary until your girl is more relaxed with their presence), then conduct the introduction on neutral ground - with all guinea pigs involved; you have just set in motion a full bonding with only one baby. Guinea pigs don't do "tasters", for them it is a full-out serious thing everytime you put them together. ive your bereaved girl to meet the babies without the added stress of having to initiate the bonding ritual with an unknown piggy.

You will have to brace yourself for some dominance behaviour as your sow is establishing her lead. She is not going to hurt any babies, but can she can rather rough putting them into their place.
You can find more information in these forum guides here:
Introducing And Re-introducing Guinea Pigs
Sow behaviour
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs
Illustrated Bonding Behaviours And Dynamics

Best of luck! Don't be tempted to rush the pre-intro phase, but once you have committed, you need to sit it out until after acceptance and the worst bit of the dominance have happened. Initial teeth chattering is a sign that your sow is not happy and feeling a bit overwhelmed when confronted with new guinea pigs she is not familiar with.