CavyCrazy
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi,
One of my pigs, Daphne, cannot stand the two pigs I was hoping to bond her with. (Cookie and Crumble). Cookie will also initiate teeth-chattering when they can get to eachother, and after a few seconds of the pair making the warning sound both will lunge at eachother and won't stop attacking the other until I forcibly pull them apart/throw a towel over them. The same happened a while ago between Daphne and Crumble. At the moment, they are all in the same area but with a bar across so that Daphne and Honey are separate and cannot get to the other two. They've been separated like this for about 3 months now, although they didn't use to be so bad
As you can probably guess, I have only tried putting them together 3 times and letting them 'get on with it' up until this fighting takes place. To give a comparison, when they attack eachother it is how fighting dogs would attack eachother- it's a whirlwind of biting, and has twice resulted in bad wounds.
Up until the fighting begins, there is teeth chattering, nipping and all the other dominance behaviour expected when introducing new pigs. Cookie will also stamp at the ground like a horse would with its hoof.
The odd thing is, though, when they all go out in the run, they couldn't care less about fighting- they just enjoy the grass. They don't even argue. It's in the cage they start.
Honey doesn't do anything during all of this- although Cookie and Crumble do dominate her in the 'usual' way, nothing serious.
Although I have decided to get two seperate cages, and to keep them separate from now on apart from their time in the run, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced such violent behaviour between Sows?
Daphne (left) and Honey (right)
Cookie (left) Crumble (right)... and Willows bum (far left)
One of my pigs, Daphne, cannot stand the two pigs I was hoping to bond her with. (Cookie and Crumble). Cookie will also initiate teeth-chattering when they can get to eachother, and after a few seconds of the pair making the warning sound both will lunge at eachother and won't stop attacking the other until I forcibly pull them apart/throw a towel over them. The same happened a while ago between Daphne and Crumble. At the moment, they are all in the same area but with a bar across so that Daphne and Honey are separate and cannot get to the other two. They've been separated like this for about 3 months now, although they didn't use to be so bad
As you can probably guess, I have only tried putting them together 3 times and letting them 'get on with it' up until this fighting takes place. To give a comparison, when they attack eachother it is how fighting dogs would attack eachother- it's a whirlwind of biting, and has twice resulted in bad wounds.
Up until the fighting begins, there is teeth chattering, nipping and all the other dominance behaviour expected when introducing new pigs. Cookie will also stamp at the ground like a horse would with its hoof.
The odd thing is, though, when they all go out in the run, they couldn't care less about fighting- they just enjoy the grass. They don't even argue. It's in the cage they start.
Honey doesn't do anything during all of this- although Cookie and Crumble do dominate her in the 'usual' way, nothing serious.
Although I have decided to get two seperate cages, and to keep them separate from now on apart from their time in the run, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced such violent behaviour between Sows?
Daphne (left) and Honey (right)
Cookie (left) Crumble (right)... and Willows bum (far left)
Happy Guinea-pigging!
