Fur flying?

Lymaine

Lymaine

Junior Guinea Pig
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Woke up to clumps of fur around the piggies cage and two grumpy boys chattering at each other! Checked them over and no wounds anywhere. My husband said he heard them running madly around at 4am but he thought they were playing. I’m assuming this is fur flying? It all seems to be from one pig.. the other one has blonde and white bits and he is the one who has suddenly decided he wants to be in charge. They are both almost 9 months old and we think they may be brothers (but not 100% sure). They’ve been together for 2 weeks in a 2x5 c&c with a loft. They’ve got on really well until now. They seem to be fine now.. any ideas?
 
I would be keeping a very close eye on them - there has definitely been a scuffle but only you can gauge how things are - dont forget you dont need to actually see wounds to call it a day if their bond is clearly not working.
Two weeks is how long it takes for them to form their relationship and they can sometimes get to the end of that period and decide they dont actually like each other after all. There is a hormone spike at around 9/10 months of age and while this one results in fall outs less than the earlier ones, the fact that it could have coincided with their bonding may not be helping. Being brothers or not doesnt make any difference to their ability to get on.

Are all your hides two exit?
Is there multiple of everything in the cage?
Is the ramp to the loft causing a problem (for some boars a ramp can be as bad as a single exit hide - there's only one way up/down and if one doesnt want the other on it....)

Ultimately though it comes down to character and while a big enough cage/enough items/double exit hides etc can help, they wont solve a compatibility problem

Bonds In Trouble
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
 
Thank you that’s really helpful. I had to go to work and was concerned about it getting worse.. they’d fought again in the time I was leaving and one of them has a sore on his back from a vet treatment so I was worried about that… so I put the one with the sore in the quarantine cage next to the main cage. Unfortunately the quarantine cage is your typical pet store cage so its quite small but I figured it was ok for a few hours while I’m work. I will put them together for floor time tonight and see how we go. They can smell each other today.. unfortunately they can’t see each other but I didn’t want to take the risk of blood.
They have two hides with two exits.. one water bottle but I have a second one I can put in and two food bowls. Only one will go upstairs.
 
Hi

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Lymaine said:
Thank you that’s really helpful. I had to go to work and was concerned about it getting worse.. they’d fought again in the time I was leaving and one of them has a sore on his back from a vet treatment so I was worried about that… so I put the one with the sore in the quarantine cage next to the main cage. Unfortunately the quarantine cage is your typical pet store cage so its quite small but I figured it was ok for a few hours while I’m work. I will put them together for floor time tonight and see how we go. They can smell each other today.. unfortunately they can’t see each other but I didn’t want to take the risk of blood.
They have two hides with two exits.. one water bottle but I have a second one I can put in and two food bowls. Only one will go upstairs.
Click to expand...

I would give them a few days apart to calm down and then try neutral territory reintroduction in a few days time.
You’re right - a pet store cage isn’t ideal if it isn’t big enough so if they won’t go back together then a side by side cage so they can see and smell each other is important
 
Piggies&buns said:
I would give them a few days apart to calm down and then try neutral territory reintroduction in a few days time.
You’re right - a pet store cage isn’t ideal if it isn’t big enough so if they won’t go back together then a side by side cage so they can see and smell each other is important
Click to expand...

Ok I’ll do that. I could maybe take away the loft to extend the floor section of the c&c and divide it into two until I get a second cage?
 
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