Feisty Male

[Emmad31]

Hiya!Looking for a bit of advice!I have two male guinea pigs.we had Goofy first and soon after got a young male to go with him but once the little one called max grew he started bullying goofy a lot and drew blood so they live separately.they also exercise at different times too as max would not stop terrorising goofy even through the bars.Until recently they lived happily in hutches on top of each other but now Max has started getting really aggitated when he can smell goofy scent on us.if we give him a cuddle after holding goofy he will sniff around on us and then start growling and nibbling us and his hair sticks up.any advice?he's really not happy but can't think of anything we can do apart from separating which we have already done xx

 

[Wiebke]

Hiya!Looking for a bit of advice!I have two male guinea pigs.we had Goofy first and soon after got a young male to go with him but once the little one called max grew he started bullying goofy a lot and drew blood so they live separately.they also exercise at different times too as max would not stop terrorising goofy even through the bars.Until recently they lived happily in hutches on top of each other but now Max has started getting really aggitated when he can smell goofy scent on us.if we give him a cuddle after holding goofy he will sniff around on us and then start growling and nibbling us and his hair sticks up.any advice?he's really not happy but can't think of anything we can do apart from separating which we have already done xx

It sounds like Max is a very dominant boar right in the middle of the teenage hormones. Follow the same rules that we recommend if you keep boars and sows in the same household or have an extremely dominant piggy: Always feed, handle, groom, roam and medicate boars before sows and dominant piggies before submissive ones.
Boars: Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

The good news is that things are going to calm down a bit again once Max reaches a hormonally more setled adulthood. Boars thankfully mellow with age as their testosterone output decreases the older they get. My bully boy Hywel became rather a softie in the last two years of his life... The time around 6 months is when the testosterone output is at an all time high. Things tend to be over the very worst by ca. 10 months and adulthood around 15 months with just the occasional hormone spike in the first years afterwards.