Hi
Following Julie's thread the other day: http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=11297.0
Blaze and our new baby piggie (christened Oscar btw) had seemed to be getting on better over the last couple of days.
However, today when we got in and were having dinner we noticed Blaze's "bullying" had returned and that Oscar was starting to react back.
As we had set up Blaze and Scampy's old CNC cage the other night we decided to move them both in to this much larger area, as intended in the first place, hoping that the extra space would help things but instead Blaze's bullying has got worse. In the last couple of hours we've seen him
1) Try and spray Oscar (or kick his leg out at him) with his scent on several ocassions
2) Chase Oscar around the cage in an attempt to mount him
3) Chased Oscar away from the food bowl
4) Tried to squeeze his way in to Oscar's much smaller stick house to stop Oscar eating the hay we had put in there for him
5) Blocked Oscar's route out of his stick house by lying directly across it's entrance
6) Blaze is constantly rumbling and lying on/around the hay (which he never did before) which sometimes prohibits Oscar from going near the hay - we have put double of everything in the C&C including hay at each end
Oscar has in turn tried nipping Blaze back a few times, but still runs to him and generally doesn't seem bothered, although there is often a stressed noise when Blaze is rumbling. At the moment they are lying snuggled up close to each other!
We had been expecting the attempted mountings and possible little nips but hadn't expected this!
This behaviour is very familiar to us as this is how Blaze initially reacted to Scampy prior to them falling out when Blaze fell ill and Scampy tried to take advantage of Blaze's illness and usurp him as "top pig". Oddly enough, Blaze's droppings have become soft again after they had returned to normal for about 4 days so we were wondering if he's just reacting to feeling unwell again.
We don't want to give up on trying to bond Oscar with Blaze but we also don't want them getting in to a huge fight (like Blaze and Scampy did) and end up having to take them both to the vets etc. Oscar's very small (he's only 6 weeks old) and does seem to need the company of the older pig but I don't want him to get injured either.
As a side note, we are taking all four of our piggies to Vedra at the CCT on Friday to get them all checked out as Blaze, Dylan and Pepe have all been unwell since Scampy died (which we had thought had cleared up) so I'm hoping she can give us some possible insight in to his behaviour. (We sent her samples of all three boys' droppings last week for analysis so are hoping she may have found some reason for their loose droppings)
However, we'd really like some help and advice on what people think should be the best course of action as I'm beginning to think getting Blaze a new friend, now matter how badly he was missing Scampy, wasn't such a good idea
Marty & Julie
Following Julie's thread the other day: http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=11297.0
Blaze and our new baby piggie (christened Oscar btw) had seemed to be getting on better over the last couple of days.
However, today when we got in and were having dinner we noticed Blaze's "bullying" had returned and that Oscar was starting to react back.
As we had set up Blaze and Scampy's old CNC cage the other night we decided to move them both in to this much larger area, as intended in the first place, hoping that the extra space would help things but instead Blaze's bullying has got worse. In the last couple of hours we've seen him
1) Try and spray Oscar (or kick his leg out at him) with his scent on several ocassions
2) Chase Oscar around the cage in an attempt to mount him
3) Chased Oscar away from the food bowl
4) Tried to squeeze his way in to Oscar's much smaller stick house to stop Oscar eating the hay we had put in there for him
5) Blocked Oscar's route out of his stick house by lying directly across it's entrance
6) Blaze is constantly rumbling and lying on/around the hay (which he never did before) which sometimes prohibits Oscar from going near the hay - we have put double of everything in the C&C including hay at each end
Oscar has in turn tried nipping Blaze back a few times, but still runs to him and generally doesn't seem bothered, although there is often a stressed noise when Blaze is rumbling. At the moment they are lying snuggled up close to each other!
We had been expecting the attempted mountings and possible little nips but hadn't expected this!
This behaviour is very familiar to us as this is how Blaze initially reacted to Scampy prior to them falling out when Blaze fell ill and Scampy tried to take advantage of Blaze's illness and usurp him as "top pig". Oddly enough, Blaze's droppings have become soft again after they had returned to normal for about 4 days so we were wondering if he's just reacting to feeling unwell again.
We don't want to give up on trying to bond Oscar with Blaze but we also don't want them getting in to a huge fight (like Blaze and Scampy did) and end up having to take them both to the vets etc. Oscar's very small (he's only 6 weeks old) and does seem to need the company of the older pig but I don't want him to get injured either.
As a side note, we are taking all four of our piggies to Vedra at the CCT on Friday to get them all checked out as Blaze, Dylan and Pepe have all been unwell since Scampy died (which we had thought had cleared up) so I'm hoping she can give us some possible insight in to his behaviour. (We sent her samples of all three boys' droppings last week for analysis so are hoping she may have found some reason for their loose droppings)
However, we'd really like some help and advice on what people think should be the best course of action as I'm beginning to think getting Blaze a new friend, now matter how badly he was missing Scampy, wasn't such a good idea
Marty & Julie