Dominance in my two guinea pigs

[olivepeanut88]

Hi all! I haven’t done a post introducing myself yet as I am in desperate need of help, i’ve done hours of research and haven’t gotten any answers so was hoping some could be provided here. Thank you in advance!

I have two female guinea pigs I bought from a shop just over 3 weeks ago, i’m unsure of their age I believe they could’ve possibly been 8/9 weeks old when I got them.

One of my female guinea pigs has shown signs of dominance and my other guinea pig has never minded up until this point. This behaviour started a week after I got them, I cleaned them out and wasn’t aware that it’s best to leave some of their scent in their cage (my bad) and my dominant guinea pig showed signs of dominance until the next morning when it all settled down, they have had one other clean out since then and that went smoothly.

I cleaned them out on Monday and that’s when this issue started again, I made sure that i’d left their scent in the cage (rubbing two fleece liners together, worked perfectly the previous time) and they seemed happy until my guinea pig started being dominant in the evening this time with added mounting amongst rumbling etc. The mounting stopped Tuesday morning and they seemed to be okay, with my dominant guinea pig rumbling every so often (every half hour or so) but nothing I was concerned about.

There is now rumbling from my guinea pig everyday, nothing I was worried about until last night when I was woken up by the sound of my other guinea pig squealing and running away from the more dominant one. I’ve been paying close attention to them and my dominant guinea pig will chase my other one into a corner anytime she gets food, she’ll chase her around the cage and she does all of this whilst rumbling at her.

Is this normal behaviour? as this only started early hours of this morning (I watched from 12-2am) I’m unsure how this is in the day however I didn’t see this yesterday. I believe it’s also worth mentioning that I have a 4x2 C&C cage.

I hope the layout of this post wasn’t too confusing and everything was okay! I am new so will do another post introducing myself soon! Thank you all again.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Mounting, chasing, rumbling are all normal behaviours and in themselves are not concerning.
When piggies move to a new home or have a change in environment, they go through a period of reestablishing their relationship and during this time you see increased dominance. Add to this the fact sows come into season every 15-17 days and during that time you will also see increased dominance.
High pitched squealing from the submissive piggy may also be submission squealing which isn’t condoning - it’s the submissive telling the dominant that they are no threat to them.

Ensure all your hides have two exits and that you have hay available in multiple places around the cage so both piggies can eat freely.

Make sure you weigh them both weekly as part of routine care to ensure they are both getting enough hay and are gaining weight.
If the dominant piggy does not let the submissive eat hay at all and the submissive loses weight because of this, then that may be bullying (which is bond breaking).

Sows: Behaviour and female health problems (including ovarian cysts)