First-time owner; my two 10-week-old Male Guinea Pigs seem to be fighting fairly regularly... Help!

[Alamerona]

Hi there GPF - I recently bought two Guinea Pigs (Got them on the 13th May), and they're absolutely lovely. Our two Pigs, Joey and Bluebear, were purchased from Pets at Home (Unfortunately couldn't adopt and can't get to anywhere to adopt), and turned out Joey has a URI - We took him to the vets as one of his cagemates at PAH had a crusty eye and hard crusty mucus around his nostrils, and PAH are currently paying for his medication after the vet confirmed it as a URI (PAH says Conjunctivitis, but we're trusting our vet's word over theirs.) - He's on Baytril 0.12ml daily ATM, and is taking it well and regularly; the two Piggies are more than happy to eat, sleep and play together, but for whatever reason, Bluebear always seems to be the more aggressive and dominant of the two - Joey is a lot more cuddly, affectionate and a bit more skittish, whereas Bluebear is a lot more scared during laptime and floortime, and is the larger of the two by about 10g. Joey will handfeed some Baby Gem Lettuce from us, but again, Bluebear won't. Finally, Bluebear appears to be most content when eating, and Joey seems to be in his element when running around like The Flash - Thinking of it, we should have named them Garfield and Odie...

In the short amount of time we've had these two, we've noticed Joey yelping out at least 4-6 times a day on average - Never Bluebear; they both popcorn, so we don't think it's the cage setup that's the issue here (2x4 C&C and a 1x2 upper layer), but we've seen Bluebear go for Joey a few times now and it's pretty worrying... Is this something to be worried about? Or is it a dominance-establishing thing? We don't want either to be injuring eachother, especially as one's sick!

Also any tips to help these piggies get more cozy during laptime would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Piggies&buns]

If can take a couple of weeks for them to establish their hierarchy and relationship. You will see dominance during this time - mounting, chasing etc and you need to leave them to sort things out between them. if there is a blood drawing fight then their relationship will be over and they will need to be permanently separated. Character compatibility is the key to a success relationship between piggies so you will need to keep an eye on them as they enter their teens to ensure they are compatible. Their teens are from 4 to 14 months of age.

You might find they could benefit from a slightly larger cage. A 2x4 c&c is a brilliant sized cage and for some boars it might be ok for generally for boars, particularly youngsters coming into their teens, the more space the better and we recommend a 2x5 cage for two boars. (The upper level does not count towards the cage size)

I’ll add in some guides below which explain boar behaviour and dominance. It’s important not to confuse dominance with aggression though

A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs

 

[Alamerona]

If can take a couple of weeks for them to establish their hierarchy and relationship. You will see dominance during this time - mounting, chasing etc and you need to leave them to sort things out between them. if there is a blood drawing fight then their relationship will be over and they will need to be permanently separated. Character compatibility is the key to a success relationship between piggies so you will need to keep an eye on them as they enter their teens to ensure they are compatible. Their teens are from 4 to 14 months of age.

You might find they could benefit from a slightly larger cage. A 2x4 c&c is a brilliant sized cage and for some boars it might be ok for generally for boars, particularly youngsters coming into their teens, the more space the better and we recommend a 2x5 cage for two boars. (The upper level does not count towards the cage size)

I’ll add in some guides below which explain boar behaviour and dominance. It’s important not to confuse dominance with aggression though

A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs

Hi there! Thanks for the super-duper quick response! We'll look at upgrading their cage to a 2x5 or higher - We have enough space and C&C components to possibly go up to a 3x5 or 4x5, so we can give them some private breathing room in case they decide to get dicey!

So just to put my mind at ease, any yelps should be all natural and nothing to worry about, except if they draw blood, correct?

We're checking them twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening just to make sure they're ok

 

[Piggies&buns]

It depends on the yelps really but you will hopefully hear submissive squealing and that is a good sign. You will have one dominant pig and one submissive. As long as the submissive continues to submit and is happy with his place in the hierarchy , then they should be ok. The problem will be if they both want to be dominant, then there will likely be problems and the potential for such fights. If you see lunges and bites and squealing then that isn’t a good sound.
They need to be character compatible and unfortunately it’s not something you can tell in advance. Once they get into their teens, you will see a lot of dominance but as long as it doesn’t progress beyond dominance into aggression and bullying, and one is happy to be submissive , then they should come through their teens.
Be careful when upgrading cages when they have established territories - environment changes can set off dominance and territory disputes. So, given they’ve not been in there long, then I would upgrade it sooner rather than later before they’ve had a real chance to create territories so you don’t risk setting something off

 

[Alamerona]

It depends on the yelps really but you will hopefully hear submissive squealing and that is a good sign. You will have one dominant pig and one submissive. As long as the submissive continues to submit and is happy with his place in the hierarchy , then they should be ok. The problem will be if they both want to be dominant, then there will likely be problems and the potential for such fights. If you see lunges and bites and squealing then that isn’t a good sound.
They need to be character compatible and unfortunately it’s not something you can tell in advance. Once they get into their teens, you will see a lot of dominance but as long as it doesn’t progress beyond dominance into aggression and bullying, and one is happy to be submissive , then they should come through their teens.
Be careful when upgrading cages when they have established territories - environment changes can set off dominance and territory disputes. So, given they’ve not been in there long, then I would upgrade it sooner rather than later before they’ve had a real chance to create territories so you don’t risk setting something off

Ok, brill - We've just finished upgrading their cage from a 2x4 to a 2x5, and are now looking into upgrading it further into a 3x5 possibly next month They seem to love the revised space, and we've made sure there's no 'choke points' so to speak - Food and water are all located in the middle of the cage, with a house and toys on each side to make sure they have private and more communal zones Thanks for all the tips!

 

[Piggies&buns]

If you find you have issues, then it can sometimes help to have the food and water at opposite ends of the cage, and certainly at least one piggy length apart, but see how they get on

 

[Bill & Ted]

You sound like you are doing a great job x

 

[Alamerona]

So small update, we've taken Bluebear to the vets along with Joey, and turns out both of them are suffering with a URI; they're both on Baytril 0.1ml x 2 daily and have eye drops to help with their crusty eyes - Other than that, however, they seem happy as can be! One thing that does concern me however is a low, croaking noise coming from Bluebear when he's resting on his own - Could it be him just relaxing? Or is this something to worry about?

 

[Piggies&buns]

So small update, we've taken Bluebear to the vets along with Joey, and turns out both of them are suffering with a URI; they're both on Baytril 0.1ml x 2 daily and have eye drops to help with their crusty eyes - Other than that, however, they seem happy as can be! One thing that does concern me however is a low, croaking noise coming from Bluebear when he's resting on his own - Could it be him just relaxing? Or is this something to worry about?

If they’ve been diagnosed with a uri, then the noise could be because of the illness
If not, they do mutter to themselves/ each other as they are going about their piggy business!

 

[Alamerona]

So today both Bluebear and Joey seem very chipper and energetic - Also I stumbled across recommendations for probiotics as they apparently help ill Guinea Pigs' immune systems; would it be recommended to pick some of these up to help these two recover from their URI's? Or should we just stick with what our vet has given us?

Also another quick question! Do Guinea Pigs suffer with some sort of attachment issues? We usually leave a bit of lettuce / cucumber outside their houses in their cage, but they only seem to eat / come out of their houses when we're present in the room with them (We have them in the front room with us currently)?-*

 

[Piggies&buns]

Probiotics can help piggies with upset tummies, often caused by being on antibiotics, and help them feel better about eating. If this applies, then you can give them probiotics and see if it helps them

They will come out and eat all the time, most commonly for new piggies it’s when nobody is in the room as they then feel more secure! They are most active in the morning and evening so if you are in the room at those times, then it may be purely coincidence. It’s great that they are happy to come out and about when you are in the room though as it means they feel secure

 

[Spanner94]

Hi!

we had the same issue when we got our guinea pigs from pets at home, unfortunately our guinea pigs UTI was too recurrent and we sadly lost him.

We got two guinea pigs from a breeder and introduced them to our adult Guinea pig who quickly accepted them. We put plenty of hiding places for them, loads of soft cushions for them. We’ve also found that having two water bottles helps as we’ve got a guinea pig that get over protective of the one bottle

We also use filtered water, we feed them the oxbow food which is expensive but definitely worth it. We also use fleeces and have their eating section that is lined with hay.

I hope somethings of what I said help you out and good luck with your new little babies