Female Guinea Pig Actually A Male, What To Do About Cage Mate

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ethingtonart

ethingtonart

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I am not sure where to post this, but...We brought home a pair of guinea pigs who were supposed to both be female but one has turned out to be male. They are strongly bonded but I really need to seperate them. So, how can I separate them without completely stressing them out? I really want them to be happy, but I don't want the sow to become pregnant.

So far my attempts at separation have failed. I had an idea that if they could see each other through a divider that that might work, so I built them a large C&C cage. I placed a divider down the middle but they always find a way to get to the other side. :/

Please let me know what I can do!
 
Hello,

Welcome to the forum.

Oh no, what a wounder... sorry to hear this, not a great situation as the bond exists.

Could I ask you to add your location to your profile, just helps us tailor any advice to your location.

First of all, need to get your female checked out in case she is pregnant. Great that you have a c&c cage but males have been known to jump over things to get to females. So you will have to look at permanent separation and then getting friends for both OR perhaps getting your boy neutered.
 
Hi and welcome!

I am very sorry for all the upset. Separating young piggies is always connected with lots of drama and heart-break! Unfortunately, you need to separate and sit out the unhappiness, as hard as it is, for 1-2 days until things settle down - which they eventually will! :(

How long have they been together and how old are your piggies? Sows come into season roughly every two weeks, and you see some mounting etc. between them. It is likely that your girl could be already pregnant, and you will have to put her through a pregnancy watch. Please start a thread for her for information, questions and ongoing support in our pregnancy section; keep all updtes etc. to that one thread so we can always refer back to your specific situation and timeline and can tailor any advice accordingly. You can find guides at the top of the pregnancy section, which should help you to prepare and deal with the situation. We can help you establish a timeline and a window in which a birth may happen. Right now, you won't likely see anything for a few more weeks, depending on how long they have been together. Nor will a vet or a scan!
Here is our sexing link if you want confirmation. Alternatively, you are welcome to post pictures of the relevant bits in our pregnancy section.
http://www.cavyspirit.com/sexing.htm

Your medium to long term option depend very much on a potential pregnancy and your local options. Right now, it would be best to leave them next to each other for constant interaction and stimulation through the grids. It would be good if you made the divider higher than just normal grid height. Desperate piggies can manage astonishing feats!
 
Thank you for the warm welcome! :)

Okay, more information...the guinea pigs are both about 2 to 3 months old. The male (formally Jade, now Jaden) was brought home at two weeks of age (his momma passed away) from pregnancy complications. :( Alice was adopted from a pet store because the breeder only had one female (well she didn't actually have a female) and while I don't know her exact age she is only slightly larger than Jaden. They have been together since around the end of March.
We live in Indianapolis, IN if that helps. I have a trusted exotic pet vet close by. She's very good :)
Okay, so I should
1. Build a better separator to keep them apart. Taller is better? Jaden was climbing over the walls to get to Alice, and I was worried that he would get hurt. :( He was also pushing himself through the mesh to get to her. Would hardware cloth be okay to use as the seperator?
2. Start a pregnancy thread/watch for Alice
3. If she is pregnant, take her to the vet?
 
A taller separator is best, especially if Jaden is a desperate climber and digger. Can you get hold of a little rod from a hardware store to cable tie to the bottom of the grids, so he cannot work underneath? Perhaps a plexiglas divider may be an idea?

As they have been together for over a month, the likelihood of a pregnancy is very high. boars can make babies from 3-5 weeks onwards and sows can become pregnant from 4-6 weeks. You are however not going to see anything until the last about 3 weeks of her Alice's pregnancy when the baby balls in her tummy become noticeable and the large weight gain happens. A vet won't be able to diagnose a pregnancy safely beforehand, either, so it is up to you whether you want to arrange a vet visit. A pregnancy is not an illness, but it really good that you have a good vet handy!

At least you will have some time left to prepare your girl with a good general controlled diet and that way making sure that she and any pups are as healthy as can be and the ideal size for a smooth, complication-free birth.
You will find answers to most of your questions re. pregnancy in these threads here, but you are welcome to ask any questions at any time in your new thread in the pregnancy section.
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/pregnancy-guide.109375/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/pregnancy-and-nursing-diet.109377/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/recommendations-for-a-balanced-general-guinea-pig-diet.116460/

We are UK based, so you are likely to get hold of us best during your morning and afternoon, as the time difference is about 5 hours.
 
ethingtonart said:
Thank you for the links! I am going to start reading all of them. If she really is pregnant I want to help her as best I can.
Click to expand...

Sadly, there is no quick fix, as the early stages of pregnancy cannot be diagnosed reliably (we have had some pretty spectacular misdiagnoses over the years). It is very much a waiting game. In my experience, making sure that your piggies are on the best possible general diet, but not overfeeding them, is the biggest factor for a success that you can control - and it is incidentally all to your piggies' benefit, whether they are pregnant or not! ;)
 
The same thing happen to me and now I have eight lovely babies and that brings my total to 13 guinea pigs they are lovely and I can a ford to keep them all. I hope all goes well. You should neuter your boy that is what I did for my oscar and he has been really good with the babies and mom.

Then I purposely picked up three very pregnant girls from a pet store but sadly one of the mothers and babies didn't make it due to there poor care. And the other one I had to take straight from the petstore to the emergency vet for a c-section she had five babies and three died, she was touch and go for a few weeks but her and two babies are doing very well now. The other mom was really young but she had one very large healthy baby.

I took my girls in to the vet and had them X-rayed so I knew how many to watch for.

Best of luck to you.
 
Steph linden said:
The same thing happen to me and now I have eight lovely babies and that brings my total to 13 guinea pigs they are lovely and I can a ford to keep them all. I hope all goes well. You should neuter your boy that is what I did for my oscar and he has been really good with the babies and mom.

Then I purposely picked up three very pregnant girls from a pet store but sadly one of the mothers and babies didn't make it due to there poor care. And the other one I had to take straight from the petstore to the emergency vet for a c-section she had five babies and three died, she was touch and go for a few weeks but her and two babies are doing very well now. The other mom was really young but she had one very large healthy baby.

I took my girls in to the vet and had them X-rayed so I knew how many to watch for.

Best of luck to you.
Click to expand...

Just to say that @Steph linden's girls were all in the later stages of pregnancy when she picked them up, so an x-ray made sense, but she didn't have enough time to really build up the poor sows for the first ones to really profit. Hers were all high risk births due to the neglect they had suffered before she tried to save them.
Your situation is very different, as are your chances of a successful birth if there is a pregnancy. Steph's story is a case in point just how much of a difference time on a good nutrionally balanced diet can make.
 
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