Guinea Pig Behaviours in their Context

[Wiebke]

Introduction
1 Which factors play into guinea pig communication?
(Scent & pheromones - Sounds - Body language - Situational context)
2 Prey animal instincts
(Flight instinct - Defence biting reflex - 'Boring toy' reflex)
3 Personal expressions
(Friendship & love - Happiness & play - In the mood & on the move)
4 Meeting other guinea pigs
(Through the bars - Meeting in 'pigson')
5 Dominance, bullying, hierarchy & territorial behaviours
(Dominance in ascending order of severity - Bullying -
Hierarchy & territorial behaviours)
6 Sexual and hormonal behaviours
(Sexual behaviours - Hormonal behaviours)
7 Stress, fear and fear-aggression
(Prey animals & stress levels -
Fear & fear-aggression when handled & meeting other piggies)
8 Feeling down
(Illness & pain - Grieving - Depression)
9 Same & similar behaviours with different meanings
(Rumblestrutting & mounting -
Rrrrr-sounds - Biting - Pain)
10 Old and new behaviours
(Half buried behaviours - Acquired behaviours)
Conclusion


Introduction: Guinea Pig Behaviours in their Context

“My guinea pig is making this weird sound. What is it?” – ”Could you please post a video or give a bit more of a description of the sound and the situation in which it has happened, please. ‘Weird sounds’ covers a rather wide field.”
Like covering about one whole quarter of guinea pig communication…

As a moderator on the Guinea Pig Forum, I am not Alexa or Siiri, who is primed to get away with a noncommittal or random answer, but an exchange like this (and a number of similar ones in the immediate wake of one of these posts, courtesy of Google) is a good illustration of the daily challenges we face when interpreting and discussing guinea pig behaviours and communication. ‘Weird’ is very much in the ear, eye and nose of the beholder.

Like our struggles to describe our own sensual impressions in ways that can be understood by other humans, the perception and description of guinea pig sounds and interactive behaviours is very individual and the words we use to describe them are very often vernacular and regional as well; which additionally makes any discussion more difficult.
It is not helped by the widespread belief of people not familiar with guinea pigs that they mainly communicate vocally, just because for us it is the most distinctive feature of their interaction. There is also a general assumption that any perceived behaviour has just one function and one meaning. Far from it!

Guinea pigs are great communicators and can convey a lot more information on very different levels than the equivalent of a human’s toddler’s picture book.


In this thread, I want to explore the much more complex guinea pig interaction in its situational context in order to gain a better understanding. I am trying to make the jump from just thumping through a dictionary to order a dinner with just a few hap-hazard words in a foreign language and plenty of gesturing and shouting to being able to speak and understand in a few simple sentences instead.

There is currently not even a set list of behaviours, not to mention consensus about what all those behaviours actually mean. I cannot promise that what I am going to undertake will be complete or totally correct in every aspect but I can promise that this is going to be the most comprehensive and detailed look at guinea pig interaction published so far.

You will hopefully feel that you will be able to understand your own guinea pigs a lot more by the end of it.
And we will finally have a pretty extensive list of distinctive behaviours and specific words to name and describe them in order to get past the ‘I say fresh coriander and you say cilantro’ hurdle, so we can create some common ground to build on and improve on our knowledge of guinea pig interaction and communication in the future.

So let’s get stuck into this admittedly rather ambitious undertaking!


1 Which Factors Play Into Guinea Pig Communication?

Guinea pigs do not just use their voice to talk with each other; they use their bodies and their scent/pheromones to convey information and to modulate it as well.

The way we have to interpret behaviours also depends on the situational context. Just like whether you get a present, get going or just get it all have different meanings for how you use the word ‘get’, so can guinea pigs say different things with the same behaviours in different situations. They also use the intensity of their behaviour, the volume and pitch of their voice and the relaxation/stiffness of their body to express how strongly they feel about the situation and the issue at stake.

So what do these various factors contribute to cavy communication?

Scent and pheromones
Guinea pigs have a much, much stronger sense of smell than we humans. While we in our Western culture do our best to suppress or mask our own body scent, guinea pigs get a lot of vital information from it, from who lives at a certain address (group and individual scent marking) to health and age of any piggy by sniffing the tiny scent gland just in front of the genitalia or to sussing out the sexual status, i.e. how close a sow is to coming into season to a boar getting very excited about the girls or is having a major testosterone spike (the latter is very obvious even to our own noses!)

Scent is sadly a book that is largely closed to us with our much weaker noses and only half the number of taste buds. We just have to keep in mind that we are missing out on about a quarter of the information at play when discussing guinea pig behaviours or speculating about certain actions, like bullying or a mother not accepting a new-born baby.

Sounds
Sounds are very often used to keep in touch with a nonstop audio status update when out of sight and moving around or to convey emotions and emotional reactions, like dislikes or whether they are just fine, excited or nervous. As a rule of thumb, the louder and faster and higher pitched the sound, the greater the strength of feeling behind it.

Babies and youngsters up to 4 months are usually the loudest and most vocal; they chatter away whenever they are on the go to allow the group to keep an ear on them when denning in and moving around in dense underground during the age when their lack of experience puts them at greatest risk of accidents and predation.

Loud submission squealing is often mistaken for bullying whereas loud squeaking when in pain most commonly happens in connection with peeing and pooing. For an experienced owner these sounds are different but that doesn’t help a frantic new owner dealing with their guinea pigs establishing a hierarchy in their new home.

Sows have a very distinct whining when they are in season but are not yet ready to mate; it serves to really get the boars excited – but they will characteristically not move away from the boar they want to mate with. In turn, boars rumble (or, more precisely, rumble-strut) in a lot more contexts than sows will use the same behaviour.

These are just some ways of how different sounds are used.

Body language
Like with vocalisations, we have to distinguish between key gestures in which guinea pigs exchange information and the way in which they hold their body in order to modulate their exchanges.

The stiffer the body, the more anxious and stressed a guinea pig is whereas a relaxed piggy is a content piggy. However, a very docile new piggy when handled could be on their ‘unresponsive toy prey’ reflex and underneath it all just hoping for a chance to get away and live another day.

Guinea pigs will also express their confidence/kudos with their body language when challenged or when they need to discipline another.
The very subtle nuances that you will pick up on more and more with your growing experience tell me a lot about how a bonding is going and how a leadership contest is to-ing and fro-ing and which one is ultimately taking it.

Key interactive behaviours are actually coming closest to human words and sentences in terms of exchanging precise messages. That is why my exploration of behaviours will contain quite a lot of them.
They are for us the easiest part of the whole guinea pig communication to understand and to use in our interaction with them (‘piggy whispering’). And there are plenty of them!

Situational context
Whenever we look at behaviours, it is crucial to know what is going on at the time in order to interpret them correctly and to also judge how they are received and answered.

As humans, we use context all the time, too. How would we know whether ‘thank you’ is said because the speaker is actually grateful, just polite or whether they are sarcastic and are in fact meaning the exact opposite? We want to know the situation and want to hear the tone and body language in which is said or want additional pointers like emojis or added written information, like ‘she whispered’ or ‘he added on the way on out’ when we read those words so we can understand them correctly.

This is the reason why in I am going to look at behaviours in-depth in their context together with others that are used in the same situation so you can learn to decipher much better what is going on.

For our quick A-Z of behaviours, please have a look at this link here: A - Z of Guinea Pig Behaviours

 

[Wiebke]

2 Prey Animal Instincts

One area where guinea pigs differ very much from us and that not every owner is aware of is the fact that guinea pigs are prey animals and that they still have those instincts if not usually quite as trigger happy as in their wild ancestors. It can still cause bad accidents from blind jumps, running away or in split second deep defence bites.

I have written about prey animal instincts and how to work around them in this long standing guide here, so below is just a quick recap: Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering and Cuddling Tips

Flight instinct
This Running away or blind jumping when you want to pick up a guinea pig or carry it back are instinctive reactions to escape a predator. It cuts especially close to their prey animal instincts when you pick up a guinea pig with your hands.

Please rather carry a guinea pig in a tunnel or box with any openings covered with your hands than on your arm. If you put guinea pig back into a cage or hutch with your hands, do so bum first so if a guinea pig jumps they will jump against your softer body instead of potentially injuring hurting their mouth/teeth etc. the cage/hutch rim. Make sure that you have blocked any holes in the room that guinea pigs could get into and never let them loose in a not enclosed place.

Defence biting reflex
The majority of deep bites come when a guinea pig is very much on edge, whether that is when you handle them, bond them or try to separate in a fight. Guinea pigs will react to any sudden movement over distance and can do permanent damage. This can also be a problem with children being allowed to cuddle guinea pigs unsupervised.

Even many bites in a fight are actually rather defence bites from a cornered guinea pig than aggression.

'Boring toy' reflex
This is the instinct where guinea pigs really fall foul of humans. For them, being a docile toy is a strategy to get a predator just playing with them to lose interest quickly enough for the piggy to make an escape and live another day.

For us humans, it makes them especially endearing. If you have a new guinea pig that is very quiet and cuddly, then you can bet that is not happy with being handled but hoping to survive the experience. Any new guinea pigs that vocalise in some form are not running on their instincts. And you won’t be wondering at some point down the line why your guinea pig suddenly hates you when in fact they have just started to trust you enough to tell you how they feel about being handled.


Avoiding any hunting behaviours, like sneaking up, looming over the cage , making sudden movements can go a long way. Keep up a gentle chatter all the way through as soon as you come into the room; a predator making their presence known is not out hunting.

These instincts can also come into play during bonding and are much more prominent in guinea pigs with high stress levels as their default setting and can lead to overreactions but they are present in all guinea pigs, especially those that come straight from being bred for sale with minimal human interaction into a pet home with very different expectations.

Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering and Cuddling Tips

 

[Wiebke]

3 Personal expressions

Friendship and Love
Guinea pigs feel no less deeply than us and can love unreservedly. You can just never make them to love each other or you. Trust and love has to be earned; it cannot be demanded.

Resting/sleeping close to each other
It is still a widespread misconception that guinea pigs sleep together all the time; that is not the case. In fact, they usually sleep on their own in their preferred hide or hanging out place. However, guinea pigs resting or sleeping close to each other is always a good sign; especially during a bonding in between round because it means that acceptance has happened and that the bonding is on track.
In the case of guinea pigs sleeping mostly together or tangled up with each other than when very young there is often an emotional need or dependency in play.

You will find guinea pigs huddled up against other when they are out of their comfort zone, like during a vet trip. Some will scream blue murder and complain vocally about feeling squashed but they would not move an inch…

Having a companion for comfort and support, does help to lower the stress; provided the guinea pigs involved are stably bonded. If the relationship is somewhat dicey, then either leave be or take your guinea pigs in separate carriers in order to avoid stress related deep defence bites and fights.

Hanging out together
It is also a myth that guinea pigs that are not on top of each other and that prefer to do their own thing cannot be as happy and stably bonded. As long as there are no signs of hostility, then you need not worry.
Close friends, especially in a larger group, may form their personal friendships. Guinea pigs that are not confident on their own will usually attach themselves more closely to a (tolerant) companion; they are often still sub-teenage but you can also see it in some adults.

Licking
Licking around the eyes and cheeks (or anywhere on the body if those body parts are out of reach is a gesture of friendliness and affirmation of the bond from a lower ranked guinea pig towards a higher ranked one.
I have also noticed guinea pigs licking each other as confirmation of their close bond after a particularly wild season.

Occasionally I see a companion, especially of an older and very frail/ill guinea pig not far from the end, licking their ailing mate’s face. My own feeling is that this is a gesture of support and care with perhaps a bit of fear of loss mixed in from guinea pigs that have already experienced loss in their life.

Lots of licking the same spot by themselves or by comrades is a signal that something is not right (for instance an eye injury or a wound) and should always be investigated. It is a mixture of care and support and also the practical administration of a weak natural antibiotic via the saliva to help with the healing process.

Barbering (eating hair)
Barbering – which doesn’t lead to hair balls in guinea pig intestines – can have very different meanings and functions.
It is often a friendly gesture, especially from a newly bonded youngster barbering their older, usually long-haired guardian that expresses their delight. In this context, it is well tolerated. A youngster can turn a long-haired adult into a short-haired one in about week. Thankfully, after the initial over-grooming, the hair usually grows back and may be nibbled only in parts from then on in. If you yourself are longer haired be aware that some guinea pigs may take a liking to giving you a haircut, too!
Dominance barbering, stress barbering or illness barbering will make their turn up in the respective contexts.
Barbering (Eating Hair)

Happiness and Play
Not surprisingly, it is the energetic and very vocal youngsters that are the most active. They are at their loudest and most vocal around 4 months of age at the start of teenage and will start to quieten down again after 6 months and then become hormonally settled and noticeably more sedate and and calm adults.

But it doesn’t mean that adults won’t indulge in some fun from time to time anymore. Some guinea pigs will retain their zest for life and fun until old age; even if they are by that time just waddling because of arthritis and following their own scent loop because are blind from advanced cataracts! My Mali was one of them, creating a new scent spoor loop just two days before passing away from sudden heart failure at 8 years.
It does however very much depend on the personality. Boars are generally more playful than sows, who are usually rather busy running the outfit.

‘Popcorning’
Don’t worry about your new guinea pigs having a seizure when they suddenly jump like mad, bounce off walls or even roll on the floor. They are just expressing their joy of life!
The same as we humans all have our own dance style when free dancing, so have popcorning guinea pigs! Popcorning can run the full gamut from just a tiny polite hop to a full-on breakdance exhibition. Most piggies are somewhere in between.
The vocalisation can also vary quite a bit individually and age related. You will soon learn to recognise your own guinea pigs’ style and know what they are up to just by listening!

‘Zoomies’
Racing around like mad, very often in short bursts but sometimes also in great loops testing out their top speed and endurance as youngsters is another expression of being happy and having lots of energy.
One of my childhood guinea pigs enjoyed jumping over a hurdle I improvised with a ruler and a couple of blocks as a youngster. Later on, he had more fun, pushing the ruler off or trying to catch onto the principle of a revolving ruler (never quite fully) but you can have much fun with a little obstacle course with a guinea pig that really enjoys the challenge and loves to run and jump their heart out.
A zooming guinea pig can inspire their mates to join in with the fun; sometimes even older guinea pigs in the same group.
Zoomies are always accompanied by high speed chuntering noises.

‘Dodgems’
When a guinea pig crashes deliberately into a companion at full speed at the end of a zooming spate, then I call it dodgems. It is often meant as an invitation to join in with the fun.
I’ll never forget Big Iola’s incredulous face when 7 years old Mali ran into her. She did however get used to it and even joined in once or twice – if rather discretely.

Living the ‘high life’
Some guinea pigs love to jump on huts and tunnels and to sleep on top of them. If you have one of them, give them plenty of opportunity.

'Popcorning' (jumping) and 'zooming' (running) - Joy and exuberance (videos)


In the Mood and on the Move
Here we are looking at vocal communication and at how to stay in contact while on the move along paths in thick underground.

Chatting away
A guinea pig that is talking is not frozen with fear. They may be apprehensive if the chatting is going up in volume, frequency and speed. Chatting is used to express the mood and status.

Youngsters up to about 6 months are most vocal. Babies can be ever so dramatic; it garners them their elders’ attention just the same as a screaming or bawling human toddler.

Youngsters get louder as their radius of action and independence increases while they are still learning to discover and master their environment. They are at their most vocal and loudest at the age they are most vulnerable to predation at around 4-6 months of age (early teenage). The chatting serves as a constant status update for the group that may be dispersed in dense undergrowth.

After that age, guinea pigs will become noticeably quieter. They will mainly chat when interacting socially. Of course, like with humans, you have the strong silent types and the nonstop chatterboxes. As a rule (with exceptions of course), boars tend to remain more vocal than sows as adults.

'On the move' chuntering
Guinea pigs make a special chatting noise whenever they are on the move. This is to keep in contact with their group while moving in single file along their paths in dense underground. It will also alert the group to possible predation of one of their members.

Piggy train
When in a group, guinea pigs will form ‘piggy trains’ with the group leader or an experience group member in the lead and another more experienced member often bringing up the rear to make sure that the group stays together. In a pair it is usually the leader in front unless you have determined back seat driver!

Bum nudging
Whenever the piggy in front stops, the next in line will nudge them in the bum to tell them to get on moving.

By the way, you can do the same to keep your piggies moving on into a box or tunnel for a safe pick up by gently nudging their bum.

'Lost baby' distress call
Babies and sub-teenagers make a special distress alarm noise they make whenever they have lost contact with their mother/group or are in trouble and need rescuing.

Protest wheeking
That is one you will pick up really easily!

Food weeks
We all know them but I am going to look at this behaviour in a later chapter when I am looking more closely at how guinea pigs have adapted their behaviours to communicate with humans. Wild guinea pig species do not have a food wheek.
Occasionally, a guinea pig can lose their big wheek and just make a hoarse sound for the rest of their life. It happens mainly in more mature adults and is not a health concern.

An interesting observation of my own roomful of guinea pigs is that main ‘Food Wheeker for the Tribe’ is actually a job that is passed around. It is very often a new arrival or a younger piggy in full voice that is taking on the position as the choir leader but it can also be sometimes an oldie whose body is no longer working optimally and who is desperate to feed.

 

[Wiebke]

4 Meeting Other Guinea Pigs

In this chapter I am going to have a look at common behaviours when guinea pigs meet each other for the first the first time. I am however having a closer look at when things don’t go to plan in a special chapter about stress and fear-aggression later on in the series.

Through the bars
Refusing to interact
A timid guinea pig can feel overwhelmed by being in a new space or in new company. Give them time - if you can wait with any bonding - until they have started to interact through the bars. Placing a blanket or sheet over the cage or bonding pen can give them a greater feel of security.

If a guinea pig refuses to interact with others and is always sitting in a different corner, then they are not willing to bond.

Excitement when meeting through the bars
In youngsters under 4 months (sub-teenage), this is the happiness of finding a new tutor and protector or at least a mate. They are generally desperate for company and in the vast majority accepting of any guinea pig taking them on but, as usual with guinea pigs, there can be exceptions. Not ever older piggy will accept every baby.
Overexcitement when meeting through the bars in adult guinea pigs is in my own experience more commonly a sign of fear rather than happiness, especially in sows.

Sleeping by the divider
Sleeping against each other in adjoining cages or by a divider is generally boundary marking territorial behaviour and not the wish to be to together.

In newly arrived adults lying across the bars is more often a sign that they are somewhat frightened; a subtle stiffness in the body can also betray them.
Please give them more time to settle in and calm down.
Relaxed guinea pigs will greet each other with less enthusiasm (unless they are recently neutered boars meeting sows for the first time) and when they are no longer as young be much more relaxed and chilled in their approach to new arrivals.

You can only ever interpret lying against a divider as friendship when the neighbours have had plenty of time to make friends and you see friendly exchanges through the grids. Even then, while looking happy as neighbours may turn out to be a very different kettle of fish when coming face to face in the bonding pen; especially with guinea pigs with fear/insecurities issues.

Youngsters should ideally be introduced as quickly as possible – they are desperate to belong - while in teenagers over 4 months and adults when meeting each other through the bars, this is actually a territorial boundary marking behaviour that has nothing to do with wanting to be friends – rather the opposite! It is perhaps the most misinterpreted behaviour of them all and can often lead to a nasty surprise when bonding.

Meeting in 'pigson'
Bum sniffing (scent gland sniffing)
When in physical company, sniffing each other’s scent gland just in front of the genitalia is the guinea pig way of exchanging individual names and personal data like age or health.
A guinea pig running away and refusing to the sniffed is not convinced yet that they would like to meet the other party or if they are sniffing but refusing to be sniffed, they are playing the ‘I am the Boss and you have to respect my personal space’ card.

Similar looks may sometimes play a role with initial acceptance but ultimately it always comes down to whether guinea pigs like each other, are a personality match and want to be together. Family looks are no guarantee for a successfully bonding.
Please never try to mask the body scent during an introduction; it is a disorientating and very unpleasant irritant for the guinea pigs and only delays the bonding process rather than promoting it. Guinea pigs have a much finer sense of smell than we humans. Scent masking is as crippling for guinea pigs as having to date a new mate blind-folded would be for us humans.

Nose sniffing or touching noses though the bars
When sniffing the bum/scent gland is not is not an option, guinea pigs get to know each other by sniffing and touching noses when separated by bars. Some sows may prefer to play it cool though but they will usually at some point come over to say hello. Older boars, who have lost their ranking in the overarching boar hierarchy may also be reluctant to greet a new potential rival.

‘Piggy washes’
Guinea pigs are giving themselves little washes, often several times a day by spreading saliva over the coat with their tongue or paws for their daily hygiene. The saliva has mildly antibiotic properties. At the same time, they will also attend to their genitalia. The wash is sometimes finished with a nose clearing sneeze.

But piggy washes have also social function: A guinea pig giving themselves a piggy wash in full view of another translates as ‘I want to be friends with you.’ Mutual piggy washing in turn or at the same time means that both are feeling the same.
This can be through the bars, at the start of the bonding process but also often during the hierarchy establishing phase in between dominance rounds to assure each other that they still want be friends together when the chips are down.
But I also have seen it in fully established pairs and groups, sometimes as a reaffirmation of the bond after a little altercation.

Ear licking or nibbling
The ears are a very sensitive organ. Ear licking is the mildest and friendliest form of dominance. In the context of an introduction, you can translate it as ‘I want you to become a part of the group I am leading’.

You can use this gesture yourself when bringing new guinea pigs home. It gives them an identity in your home and it tells them that they are welcome. It also immediately settles the hierarchy between you and you will have less problems later on when your babies hit teenage or if you need to repeat the gesture to ensure better cooperation for medicating and syringe feeding. It also comes in as a handy but still friendly reminder during any grooming care of yours with a wiggly piggy that is not keen nail cutting or being brushed.

Rumble-strutting (stiff legged bum wiggling while rumbling)
Rumble-strutting is very common mild boar behaviour, so I am going to look at it a bit more later in the series in different contexts as it has different functions in different contexts.
Boars will rumble-strut to impress sows but also to measure up against other boars in a peaceful manner.
If sows rumble-strut (much less often), it is always a dominance behaviour.

Any boar worth his salt will instantly want to impress any sows in sight and will feel the need to measure himself up against another boar unless they are more dominant by outlook, in which case will they hump new piggies without further ado.
I generally divide my boars into ‘rumble-singers’ or ‘mountaineers’, depending on what their favourite boarly way of expressing themselves socially is. New bonded neutered boars sometimes seem to have a phase when all they want to say comes out as a rumble – except for the food wheek.

Mounting/humping
Mounting is a complex behaviour which I will discuss in more detail later on. In an introduction setting, is always a mild dominance behaviour that can be practised by both genders against both genders. Seeing guinea pigs mount another other is never proof that the mounting piggy is actually a boar.

More typically, it is practised by boars. Sows submitting to a boar mounting them even though they are not in season during a bonding accept his dominance while a dominant sow will refuse to be mounted by boar (even when she accepts him) until she comes into season.
In boar bonding, mutual humping is not at all uncommon and not a problem. Problems arise only when one boar refuses to be mounted and the other party is not heeding any warnings; especially when boars go overboard and hormones turn off their brain.

Persistent pestering can lead to fights, so be on guard. The same goes for any nonstop mounting upon meeting when the hormones take over to the degree that the other party is not able to eat, drink or sleep unmolested – in this case you are looking at bullying. Always give a baby boar a safe refuge during bonding that the older boar cannot get into or split the boy off for a couple of days and then re-start on neutral ground but hopefully in a calmer mood if the humped piggy has been showing signs of real distress in addition to their loud vocal protest.

I generally prefer to give newly arrived neutered boars a few days in an adjoining pen with interaction through the bars to give them time to get over their initial overexcitement if at all possible. Otherwise, I am keeping a close eye on the body language of the submissive piggy at the receiving end. If they are not showing signs of real stress, then it can be better to let them push through and sit it out.

Persistent chasing off
If a dominant guinea pig is not just keeping a new under-piggy out of their personal zone and chases them out of prime spots (including food bullying, just to throw their weight around) but keeps chasing them around the cage all the time (and not just once or twice) and basically off their territory with a threatening body language past the first couple of days, then this can mean a failed bonding as acceptance has not happened.

Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics

 

[Wiebke]

5 Dominance and Bullying Behaviours

Dominance Behaviours
Guinea pigs live in a hierarchical and territorial society. Dominance behaviours are therefore at the very heart of daily interaction. You cannot have two guinea pigs or more without dominance behaviours. Dominance does range from the very mild everyday interaction to comparatively rare fights at the other extreme. The later are generally caused by the way we humans breed, source and keep pet guinea pigs. Please do not let your fear of fights try to prevent any dominance interaction between your guinea pigs, especially during bonding or the settling in period.

Where confusion can arise, especially in new owners, is because many common dominance behaviours are also mating behaviours; but all these normal everyday interactive behaviours are sadly all too often mistaken for bullying, which is thankfully a lot rarer than you may expected because of all the bad press and the fear of fights.

Submissive Behaviours
Submission screaming
Under-piggies during or after bonding or if the hierarchy is enforced/reinforced for whatever reason will submission scream as the appropriate answer. They are not in pain and they are not being bullied although it can sound like it. It is actually a very effective prevention behaviour that translates as: “Don’t be nasty, I am not a competitor

Loud protest
In every other situation, an under-piggy will confine themselves to a loud protest whenever they have to evacuate their cosy or have their piece of food snatched away.

Running away
Getting out of the way is the most common submission behaviour. Timid piggies will do it just at the hint of a gimlet glance from the more dominant piggy while others need an emphatic nip.

Eye licking and social barbering
Under-piggies will often demonstrate their delight or appeasement with a more dominant one by licking their eye or cheek or by eating the hairs of especially long-haired new companions – a full nibbled short-hair cut from an over-enthusiastic youngster takes about a week. Thankfully, guinea pigs don’t suffer from hair balls in the gut (bezoars) and the hair will grow back.

Mild everyday dominance
Chucking out of prime locations
The higher ranked guinea pig has first choice. For situations where dominance is an issue, it pays to only offer housing with two or more exits and to ensure that there are as many hides as there are piggies, or even one extra.

The protest from the under-piggy can be vocal and dramatic but it the act is not violent.

Chucking off food bowls, hay trays
Blocking water bottles and hay racks
Access to food and water is also privileged. Please ensure that you have two water bottles in different places, different hay access that cannot be physically blocked. Instead of bowl feeding, sprinkle-feed limited pellets and veg around the cage; this also counts as enrichment. It also encourages your piggies to eat more hay in between servings, which enhances their long term health and longevity.

You will still get the occasional squabble from food thieving and the last bits but the under-piggies have more chance of getting their fair share.
Babies and sub-teenagers learn what is safe to eat and what not from their elders by sniffing and snatching morsels from their elders’ mouths. Feel happy if you see that!

Chasing
Chasing an under-piggy away is common mild behaviour if the chase is short and often ends with a dominance hump from a boar (i.e. acceptance of his dominance).

Excessive and/or constant chasing means that either acceptance has not happened in a bonding intro or as bullying if it is new behaviour in an established relationship, especially if the chased piggy is basically not allowed to be anywhere near the chaser and to share their space, denning area and food. In this case, the bonding has failed and the bond is no longer viable.

Rumbling or rumble-strutting
Although this is more commonly regular boar behaviour it is actually also used by sows (including against boars) in a strict dominance context.

Boars measure up against each other by rumble-strutting – he who has the most sonorous rumble and the stateliest hip swing comes out on top. Smaller or less confident boars will compensate with a bigger bum wiggle, sometimes to the degree that the bum seems to be wiggling with the piggy.
Boars also use it to woo and impress any sows.

In a territorial/confrontational context whether through the bars or face to face, the boars will emphatically nip away their bonded sows (no flirting tolerated) while they deal with the situation. The loser will – if possible – move out of the range. It can end in a hostile teeth chattering stand-odd group stand-off through the bars.

However, rumbling (with or without bum wiggling) is also used to just express their ‘boarliness’, utter content with life. This kind of rumbling can suddenly move up several octaves and result in a popcorning sessions. Even when the boy has just been told off by his wives…

It is very sweet to watch baby boys trying to copy their teacher boar’s example for the correct motorcycle modulation or the perfect hip swing to impress some neighbouring sows.

I usually divide my neutered ‘husboars’ into generally (but not always) more submissive ‘rumble-singers’ and into usually more dominant ‘mountaineers’, depending on their preferred mode of expressing their manliness.

Mounting
Mounting is a very typical dominance behaviour with quite a wide range of uses and a wide scale of intensity.

In its mildest form it can be interpreted as saying hello to a fellow boar or a newly met sow (not always appreciated) or, if it is casually habitual with their mate, just as ‘here I am, buddy’.

In its hierarchical function, non-mating mounting is there is enforce dominance. An under-piggy that accepts this will allow themselves to be mounted.

Problems arise when two mounters meet and neither will submit or when a boar has a hormone rush during the intro or during teenage and goes onto a mounting binge every which way and with whatever is to hand to be humped. These spikes can last a day or two. If the humped piggy is unable to eat, drink or sleep unmolested, please separate for two days and then re-introduce on neutral ground outside the cage. If the bond is still viable, they will go back together again. With baby boar introductions please always provide a refuge with two small exits that the larger boar cannot get into – whether that is small tunnel or a cardboard box for the first few days.

Staring down
A gimlet stare in combination with a confident stance is the hallmark of an assertive leader in full control but the stance and stare also announces that they are happy to wipe the floor with the under-piggy or new arrival if needed.

Chinning/Nose-offs
Sows of similar standing will measure up against each other by holding their heads up against each other so their chins are facing. The losing sow will stand more and more sideways instead of head-on and will eventually break and run. The winner may or may not follow in a chase, depending on the strength of feeling.

Forcing the chin up
This behaviour is used as a reminder of who is boss and has a similar function as a telling off in humans would. You can use this (gently, please) to let a piggy know when you do not like a specific behaviour of theirs, like tweaking.

Kicking/back leg swipe
A back leg swipe is more common in group situations and simply means: “Get out of my way”. Occasionally a misjudged back leg swipe can cause a shallow bleeding scratch.
You can spot the difference between an accidental scratch and a fighting one by the lack of general tenseness and apprehension. Guinea pigs can distinguish perfectly between accident and intention.

Nipping
Nipping is not a painful bite but a very carefully judged gesture of power that lets the under-piggy just feel the teeth but without breaking the skin. It is a very common dominance gesture during any group settlement and in bringing up youngsters. The appropriate answer is submission screaming (which is not pain) or a loud protest.

Teeth chattering
This is another behaviour that can run the whole gamut from just “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like you” at the lowest volume a most strongly dislike and a fight warning at other end, especially when in combination of the hairs standing on end.


Warnings and threats (medium dominance)
Many of the milder behaviours taken one level up in intensity of volume or a tenser body language with raised stiff legs can express a stronger feeling behind each message.

There are also a range of warning behaviours which mean that you better keep a close eye on the situation.

Deliberate yawning
This is a defensive warning behaviour, usually from the weaker party that is usually not followed through and is more often resulting in running away.

Raised hackles/hair standing on end
This is to make themselves bigger in the face of a perceived challenge or potential thread. Hair standing fully on end means that there could be a fight when in the same space because this signals that the other party is seen a very serious threat.

Raised hair without any interactive context (often starting when eating and then when sleeping to being puffed up all the time) can be a sign of pain inside the body or head.

Loud teeth chattering
This is a clear expression of mutual dislike. At the start of a bonding, it can be an expression of insecurity and can hopefully be allayed during the ensuing moves if the other side stays calm and non-hostile.

But this level of chattering can also be picked up by the whole group or even the whole room. It can take a while for the piggies to calm down afterwards.
If a whole bonded group teeth chatters at neighbours or a newbie, then you are looking a nice feud through the bars or at a failed bonding. Once piggies have decided that they do not like each other, they are not likely to change their mind, nor for a very, very long time or more likely ever.

Snorting/loud exhale
Face to face, this translates as “I am really angry. Stop right now.”

Lunging and flying tackles
Lunging is always a defensive behaviour, not an aggressive one. It means quite literally: “Stay out of my space”. The extreme form is a flying tackle.

How things progress from there depends on how the other piggy reacts. If they stay moderate, then the situation is manageable. If there is however a hostile response, things can escalate very quickly and a fight can ensure.

Tussles and fights (strong dominance)
The difference between tussles and fights is that in a tussle both piggies are trying to avoid crossing the line into outright aggression. Tussles are more common in a failed mixed gender bonding while outright fights with deep bites usually happen between boars; the bites are generally to the face, ears or rump. Deep bites from sows are always made in defence.

Please separate immediately but not with your bare hands. Riled up guinea pigs will react instinctively to any sudden movement and can do serious harm.

Deaths are actually extremely rare and are accidental if a deep bite hits a vital spot. Most bites are actually made out of fear and in defence in a cage situation that does not allow the losing party to remove themselves from the territory of the winner.

Mouth full of hair
The sow equivalent of a fighting boar bite is a mouth full of the other piggy’s hair ripped off quite painfully. Bonded sows are wired to live, survive and bring up their pups together; they cannot afford bloody fights.
However, that kind of bite means that a bond has failed.

Fighting bites to the rump and ears
Bloody bites to the rump and ears are a sign of a failed bond due to unresolved dominance and/or a personality mismatch. They are typical for boars who have not the option for the loser of a dispute to remove themselves from the shared territory (i.e. the cage) and is forced to fight repeatedly if not separated. These boars are better of with a divider and each having their own territory.
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Boars: Where Does The Bad Press Actually Come From?

Guinea pigs don't fight to kill. Extremely rare deaths are never intentional when a deep fighting or defence bite accidentally hits a vital spot, like the spine.
Deep fighting bites usually present as two sets of two needlepricks - for the four incisors. Please see a vet as the bite wounds may need antibiotic because they can abscess and be difficult to cure.

Frontal bites to the face/lips are generally the result of a defence bite from a trapped or surprised piggy on edge and can happen with all genders. The 'attacker' is generally the bitten piggy.
A tense body language and a general feeling of tension and wariness are usually to be noticed before this happens. It can however also occasionally happen due to a sudden noise or smell (not always noticeable to us) that two stressed out piggies seek refuge in the same hut.

Gash on the face
A gash on the face can be from a mis-judged back leg swipe or a defence bite. Guinea pigs can very much distinguish whether it was an accident or an averted injury; their body language will tell you.
Piggies involved in a fight are very often shocked, subdued and tense/wary in their mutual interaction. Behaviour as normal happens in the wake of a misjudged back leg swipe because this counts as an accident.
Please disinfect all wounds but be careful to move your hands very slowly and deliberately around roiled up, tense piggies to not risk a defense bite.

First Aid: Immediate Care Measures and Non-medication Products

How to minimise the risks of fights

• Plenty of space. With a boar pair ideally room enough that it can be divided into two single cages if a bond fails. The extra space is not a guarantee that a bond will work out through teenage but it gives the under-boar space to remove themselves to the other end for a more amicable divorce and without forcing the two boars into a serious bloody fight. Once there are intentional bites, a bond has failed.
• Any housing should be open on more than one side. Avoid dead corners where a piggy can b trapped. Have everything in twos and spacially well apart. Many fights start because the only way out is it to go against the stronger boar; bites to the mouth are pretty much always fighting free bites.
• A cooling down 2 day separation with a divider during a teenage hormone spike. This length of time will allow the spike to die down again and the boars to wash the hormone stink out of their coats on their own. Any immediate bar rattling is territorial behaviour, not the wish for reunification.
  Please introduce the boars outside the cage on neutral ground. You will find out very quickly whether the bond is still viable or –if hostilities resume within minutes – has failed for good. Have thick gloves at the ready.
  Please accept that you can do this only so much without adding to the destabilisation of the bond with too many time-outs but it can really help you avoid a fight when you notice warning behaviours and tensions building up. You cannot miss the whole different atmosphere when things get serious.

Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Bonds In Trouble (for all other piggies)

 

[Wiebke]

Bullying

The most common form of bullying is dominance behaviour going overboard, either during bonding (both introduction and the following group establishment weeks) or during hormone spikes, whether that is during teenage or in sows with ovarian cysts.
Boars are generally more upfront while sows, who are wired to live in a group with others, can be much more underhanded.

It however always important that you have a potentially bullied guinea pig vet checked and any medical problem excluded that could cause a change in the hierarchy. The second part of this chapter will deal with this aspect.

The best test to see whether a bond is still viable or whether a piggy of either gender is no longer happy is a 2 day separation with ideally a divider in the cage (always useful to have one in reserve); the two days allow for a hormone spike to die down and the pheromones being cleaned from the coat by the piggies themselves. Don’t look at the potential bully – they always want to be back. Look at the potentially bullied piggy. Are they suddenly perking up and looking a lot more cheerful and outgoing when on their own?
In order to further check the bond, please conduct a re-introduction on neutral ground outside the cage (in case of rampant boars, please with thick oven gloves at the ready). If the bullied piggy loses their spark again within a few minutes and it is all a one way road, then you are indeed dealing with a case of bullying and a permanent separation.

Hormonal and bonding bullying
Boars can often suffer an overwhelming hormone surge when meeting another guinea pig, especially meeting sows for the first time but also baby boars or – if not used to company – also another boar. Sometimes they can also experience hormone overload when they find themselves unexpectedly in the leader position.

Excessive mounting
Excessive mounting turns into bullying whenever the mounting from any direction, back, into the face or on the sides is truly incessant to the degree that the other party is not able to eat, drink or sleep unmolested and the recipient is clearly becoming distressed.

In this case, please separate and give it another go two days later to see whether things are going better in a calmer setting and whether the boar or sow at the receiving end is still willing to bond. Be aware that you will have to start the whole bonding process back in square one in this case.
This can happen to both full and neutered boars.
It is thankfully rare for boars to be unable to control hormones or to produce the calming compound they develop around sows in order to calm down and not go overboard with each season.

With baby-adult bonding, it helps to provide a tunnel or a cardboard box with two small exits on different sides cut in that the older boar cannot get into to give the little one a safe refuge with an escape route.

Blocking access to food and drink
Any dominant guinea pig has first choice as a perk for carrying the responsibilities for the survival of the group as a whole with their decisions as a leader. Bullying starts where the under-piggy is refused access to a food bowl or a water bottle, either by persistent chasing off or by physically blocking access to hay, pellets or water.

Please always make sure that you have two water bottles, ideally at different ends of a cage or in different parts and any bowls over a body length apart. Personally, I would recommend to sprinkle feed pellets and veg around the cage as this minimises food bullying and also counts as enrichment since it stimulates natural behaviour. It is also recommended to offer hay in two places since it makes over three quarters of the daily food intake.

‘Locking in’
Physically blocking the exit of a hide or corner by lying in front of it is clear bullying behaviour. Please always make sure that you have only hides, houses and tunnels with two exits, ideally in different sides so you can prevent this from happening.

It is also one of the major flash points for a fight with full on bites to the face when a desperate piggy’s only choice for getting out is a –defensive – attack.

Possessiveness can occasionally become excessive. The best way to deal with it is having exactly the same at each end of the cage (hide with two exits, bottle and toys). In the case of a group it has helped me to diffuse a disruptive situation by lining up wooden log tunnels in a row like backyard garages, so they could not all be physically controlled and there was no prime residence.

Chasing
Persistent chasing outside the classic dominance phases can also hint that acceptance of a group member has not happened or has been withdrawn. Again, please don’t go just by a single one-off behaviour but keep a close eye on the whole situation and keep assessing the dynamics.

Make sure that you distinguish between playing and unfriendly and unprovoked chasing off and keeping at a distance.

Constant enforcement of abject submission
This behaviour applies to situations outside the normal context of bonding/two weeks post-intro group establishment phase, hormone spikes, sow seasons or any group/territorial changes and it needs to occur a number of times over a number of days. The dominant piggy also needs to demand abject total submission by forcing the chin up and other dominance behaviours. A bond can fail when the submissive piggy is no longer willing to submit.

It is in this context also worth to be aware that giving your boars a lot of cage space won’t prevent a personality clash or fall out, but that the extra space will give your boars the option to an ‘amicable divorce’ by dint of the losing boar being able to keep their distance and to have their own territory. You can formalise that with a divider after a tester bonding session on neutral ground to check whether the bond is still viable or not.

Sneaky bullying
Less obvious bullying tactics include the below mentioned behaviours. Please accept that it is very often a matter of degree rather than a clear cut situation and that it can be rather difficult to work out whether it is a medical problem or real bullying at the bottom of it.

It is generally much more likely to be an alert for a developing underlying health problem but your knowledge of the piggies involved and their quirks and personalities will also help you to read the situation and find an individual solution.

Sneaky bullying tactics can be used by either gender but they are more common in sow groups.

Unprovoked nipping
Spontaneous nipping out of the blue without context (like nipping a sleeping piggy) etc. can point to sneaky bonding. Again, a one off is not bonding but if you notice this behaviour several times a day outside of the normal context, it can be a pointer together in combination with other bullying behaviours.

Sleep crowding
There is a subtle but important difference when sleeping close together or even tangled up with each other for comfort or when a dominant piggy deliberately invades the space of an under-piggy and raises a protest. This often comes with nipping, especially if the under-piggy doesn’t make space. The bullying aspect comes in when a dominant piggy consistently targets the same under-piggy. It is a less obvious variant of throwing out a piggy of some prime estate.

Dominance barbering
Barbering of a lower ranked piggy by a higher ranked one can have a negative component as reinforcement of the dominance.

It verges into bullying where the barbering (biting off hair) is right down to the skin or where the barbering is perpetrated by the group (in the second case usually also connected to weight loss due to pushing off food). However, you need to make very sure first that it is not a case of self-barbering due to a pain issue like arthritis or skin parasites like mange mites. Bullying is always your last possible option after every other possible angle has been closed out.

Weight loss
Significant weight loss (over 50-100g) can be the result of bullying, especially subtle bullying, but it is in my own experience much more often due to a developing health problem than to bullying.

Keeping a piggy from access to water, hay, veg and pellets can be quite subtle.

Moody Guinea Pigs: Depression, Bullying, Aggression, Stress, Fear and Antisocial Behaviour


Institutional ‘bullying’ dominance
There are two scenarios where guinea pigs are emphatically pushed to the bottom of the group hierarchy that can look very much like bullying to the owner but that are not.

Weaned babies
Nursing babies and mothers enjoy a special protected status within the group that temporarily suspends their actual ranking in the group hierarchy. Once the weaning is majorly done, the mother will be pushed back into her original rank within the group hierarchy unless of course she is the leader.
If a nursing sow has been separated from the group and feels that she has gained in status as the leader of her own little family, this can lead to a fall-out/failed reintegration. It is always a very careful weighing up but between sometimes conflicting needs for the owner. If possible, a separation should be avoided or kept short but this is a situation that has to be played by ear.

The mother and the group will push babies increasingly and emphatically to the bottom of the existing hierarchy at the end of the natural weaning phase. This can be very dramatic as babies are ever so vocal. They are also too agile to come to real harm as long as they can easily get out of the way (two exits, please!). If they stand still when being dominated on, then please see that as educational group dominance because that is how the babies and adults take it.

Pushing the old leader to the bottom of the hierarchy
The other scenario where group dominance is ritualised is when a previous leader is pushed out either in a hostile takeover or is no longer able to act as a leader through illness or old age. They are typically pushed to the bottom of the hierarchy.

This can turn into a more systematic bullying situation in a hostile takeover, especially if an additional illness comes into play and the group is swinging in behind the new leader.

Apart from the normal dominance behaviours especially from the new leader and the piggy just ranked above in the re-established group, very occasionally dominance barbering can be observed in this context; especially if there is a certain amount of grudge from the now suddenly higher ranked companion.

A failed leadership takeover can also end with the pretender being summarily pushed to the bottom and - if they have not been popular with their mates - ending up being bullied by the group.


Very often, especially with a well-liked and respected leader, the process is as gentle and minimal as possible.


Hierarchy and territorial behaviours

With an average life span of only around 3 years and a hostile environment, wild guinea pig social life is much more fluid and eventful, whether that is losses, births, regular leadership changes, new boars being accepted or changes to the territory due to climate extremes, infectious illnesses, predation and the waxing and waning of group fortunes and the amount of territory they can claim around their denning areas.

What can trigger a new hierarchy sort-out?
Every major change in personnel or territory means that the group has to re-establish itself with a new hierarchy sort-out from the top down to the bottom. If there are competing claims for leadership or some major unresolved conflicts festering, this is the time when they can come to the fore and can lead to fall-outs even in adult relatives and long term companions. It is both a time for a big crisis if it leads to a split but also an opportunity to start afresh under a clear leader. Because the survival of the group as a whole depends on the group working as a unit, a clear hierarchy is absolutely crucial.

This need for establishing and re-establishing a working hierarchy in the wake of a change is still very much present in our pet piggies; whether that is in the wake of a bonding introduction, after a death or a group split/medical separation or if an under-sow in a pair has had babies and has therefore gained in standing but it also applies to territorial changes from arrival in a new home to any cage extensions or moves or any other big changes to the environment. Teenage boars are the most sensitive to territorial changes (even to cage cleans in the extreme) but it can also affect older pairs, including cystic sows.

On average, the hierarchy sort-out lasts around 2 weeks; it can be much shorter (especially with babies) or last much longer with an insecure new leader who has got the job by default rather than wanting it. It always works downwards through the rungs and starts with the highest ranked piggy that is directly affected by the change. If a leader’s position is not in question, they will stay aloof; and so will any ‘husboar’ if the problem involves the sow hierarchy but not his own standing. The group is only fully established once this process is finished. That is why any bonding is not just a matter of a few hours but actually a much longer process. You will see the biggest dominance always coming from the piggy ranked just above to the one ranked below. In a larger group, this is often the only time you can get an insight in the inner workings.

The hierarchy sort-out is characterised by typical dominance behaviours (carefully judged gestures of powers) and often plenty of submission screaming, which is NOT from pain. It can be very mild in piggies wanting to be with each other and very contested if there is a conflict of interest that cannot be resolved with the fronts hardening as the days go by. In this case, it is usually better to call a bonding off or split a group as the accumulated grudge has a very bad habit of resurfacing again at the worst time possible.



Chinning between Tegan and Hedydd

What can I do to mitigate the impact?
You can ease potential flash points by spreading/rubbing scent-marked bedding or fabrics all over a joined or new/newly extended cage. Provide as many hides with two exits as there are piggies (ideally all the same which cuts down on possessiveness) and by sprinkle-feeding veg and pellets around the cage as well as having water bottles at different ends and ensuring that access to hay (which makes around 75-80% of the daily food intake) cannot be blocked.

The one ‘fail-safe’ bonding trick which I have found does not work is to switch bedding between cages prior to any bonding. It doesn’t make any difference for piggies, who are desperate for companionship but it very much feels like a hostile intrusion for any insecure piggies, fuelling their stress and contributing to a bonding fail right from the outset because acceptance will be denied any perceived hostile invader.


Territorial behaviours
That guinea pigs are territorial and have territorial behaviours is little known and behaviours are very often misinterpreted. Guinea pigs have both a territorial Group setting (centering on their denning/cage area) and a larger communal Herd mode. We are making use of both during the bonding process or in the way we keep piggies.

Some piggies are very good at picking feuds even through the bars; usually these are piggies that cover their massive fears and insecurities with overly aggressive behaviour. If it is answered by the other side, you may want to think of either moving the cages apart or putting in an opaque divider unless this is the only way of socialising a single guinea pig that is unable to bond with other piggies.

Typical territorial behaviours
Nose bumps through the bars
The less friendly answer to a friendly 'Hello, neighbour'. It can mean a fairly mild 'Don't presume' to a youngster or a 'Stay on your side' to a new neighbour.
Please note that guinea pigs do not bite others (and especially not strangers) through the bars/

Strong bar biting and rattling
In newly arrived guinea pigs over the age of 4-6 months meeting piggies on the other side for the first time, this is generally a fear-aggressive response and not a friendly one. Keep an eye out for a slightly tense body language.

In newly separated piggies it means that guinea pig causing the trouble wants to go back - but only to continue where they have left off. NOT friendly at all. Please concentrate on how the other piggy is reacting to being away from their mate. If they are perking up noticeably and are staying away from the divider, then they are relieved. Otherwise, they are more likely spoiling for a fight, too. If they are both really still at it, cable-tie some cardboard to the divider until they have settled down.

Boars coming into the presence of sows want to be with them, of course. Newly neutered boars meeting sows for the first time are often very excited; especially when a sow is coming into season. A single full boar being moved next to sows for company is best kept in a traditional cage in order to avoid accidental meetings - boars can be amazingly determined and athletic when a sow is having a stronger season in their presence)!
I strongly recommend to cable tie any grids and if needed to ensure that your piggy cannot jump, climb or squeeze between loosened grids until things have a settled down fully a few weeks later.

Lying/Sleeping against the divider / 'Territorial border lie-in'
In new neighbours, after a cage clean or in newly separated guinea pigs, this is a territory border marking dominance gesture. I call this a 'Territorial Border Lie-in'. It is usually the boars or a very dominant group leading sow who do this as a marked gesture.
Friendship only comes in much later and is accompanied by other gestures that signal a wish to be friends like ostentatious Piggy Washing (ideal mutual).

Rumble-strutting in parallel along the fence ('boar haka')
When performed by sows against their neighbours, it is always territorial dominance and translates as 'Keep away our property!'
In boars it is a bit more differentiated although there is always a territorial dominance component. It can go from a fairly friendly and joyful measuring up through the boundary as to who comes top in the ratings to some real grudge matches between permanently fallen-out boars. The intensity and context of this has to be taken into consideration. You can find a couple of boar hakas of different intensity in the boars chapter of our bonding guide for comparison: A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars

Defence bites especially to the face
during an unplanned invasion/breach of territory if one party feels cornered/threatened (for more information on defence bites see entry Biting).


Since hierarchy sort-outs can often trip up new or unsuspecting owners, I hope that this helps you to understand what is going on a bit better.

For the post-intro dominance phase, please see our bonding guide: Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics

More detailed information on dominance and territorial behaviours:
A - Z of Guinea Pig Behaviours
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs
The Herd, the Group and I: Investigating Guinea Pig Identity and Society

 

[Wiebke]

6 Sexual and hormonal behaviours

Sexual behaviours
Sows in season
Sows come into season roughly every two weeks (15-17 days) but if they suddenly come into contact with make pheromones, this can trigger a spontaneous season. Sows have their first season at around 4-6 weeks of age but the earliest documented sibling pregnancy is 24 days. They basically start as soon as they are weaned.
They will also come into season again within hours to a day of giving birth and are basically nonstop breeding machines until they die from birthing complications or simply wear out if left in the company of boars. Unlike the wild species they have been bred out from thousands of years ago, they no longer have a breeding season during the time nutritious fresh grass is abundant. There is no menopause.

Not all seasons come with a lot of a drama; in fact many will go unnoticed. Some sows are much more hormonal than others and a leader may have a more pronounced season in pair of sows.
Generally, the first or first few seasons after a bonding with piggies of either gender are stronger as the shared excess of pheromones and emotions helps to cement the bond. Seasons are at their strongest around 6 months, which corresponds with the life-long testosterone peak in boars.

In the run up to a season, you may notice the following behaviours:
‘Moodiness’
A rise in hormones can result in a sow being rather tetchy and can cause on occasion some friction in a group. Increased nipping, chases or general dominance-driven throwing one’s weight around are not quite uncommon.

Rumble-strutting
It is generally seen in a dominant sow or in a more hormonal submissive sow or one who has not quite buried her aspirations.

Target peeing
As sow near a season, the pheromone output from the tiny scent gland just in front of the genitalia changes. Boars are keeping an increasingly close nose on this. If their bum sniffing becomes too much of a nuisance, sows will target pee straight into his face. You can usually spot an experienced ‘husboar’ by his yellowish nose and his readiness to make a jump back at any time.
Other sows may also bum sniff if the pheromones are exceptionally strong.

A season lasts about 15-17 hours. Only during the last few hours is a sow actually receptive and ready for mating. Behaviours you see during the first, larger part of a season:

Sow whining
A sow coming into season will stick close to a (please neutered) boar. She will produce a special whining chatter that tells the boar that she has chosen him to mate with him but is not ready – yet. Excited boars usually overhear the last word… Some sows can produce a mighty protesting drama but tellingly, they won’t move away from the boar.

Protecting the bum from boars and chases
In the hours until a sow is receptive, she will not allow any boar to mate with her. Since especially younger boars are not exactly good at waiting, they will try to corner or surprise her, which can get a bit lively with rotational jumps, back leg swipes, target pees or even chases until a sow can find a new corner where to make a stand.

Sow-to-sow or sow-to-boar mounting
If the sexual urges are very strong, sows in season will in the run up to the real mating mount others. They usually do this with the sow rank just below her in the hierarchy or – if that is not an option – with the sow ranked above. It is one of the few opportunities to figure out the exact hierarchy in a larger group.

Only very occasionally the intended boar himself can end up as a hormonal mounting object. The first time this happens to him, the expression of surprise/confusion/dismay on his face is usually priceless!

You can spot when the actual sexual mating happens by the following behaviours.
The sow stopping and lifting her bum
It is crucially the sow who calls the shots when it comes to mating. She clearly signals the boar that she is ready and willing to mate with him. Since the actual moment is very short, a boar penis has two prongs at the very tip to anchor it inside the sow long enough to do the job in case she is starting to move away. However, for any owner this happens far too quickly for you to be able to interfere and prevent impregnation; you simply cannot genders safely without at least one party having been de-sexed.

Repeated sexual mating
Boars will mate repeatedly with sows during the relatively short period when she is receptive. Once this period is over, she will become increasingly reluctant to sit still or allow the boar to mount her.

Sows: Behaviour and female health problems (including mounting and ovarian cysts)
When Sows Experience A Strong Season (videos)


Boar behaviours with a sow in season
In the run-up to season – although many matings, especially between adult partners who have been together for a longer time will be very much on the discrete side and may even go unnoticed.

In the run up:
Bum sniffing
Increased bum sniffing from a boar is always a good indicator of hormonal/pheromonal changes. This will actually start several days before a sow season is due.

Increased rumble-strutting and mounting attempts
Any boar wants to be one chosen to mate with a sow. He does show her his willingness with his rumble-strutting display, trying to come as close to her as possible. He may also get rather excited and try to dominance mount or sexually mount prematurely, which is not usually welcome.

Behaviours during a season:
Spray peeing (scent marking)
Boars will mark a sow coming into season as theirs by dousing her in his own testosterone and pheromone-laden pee again any other potential rivals. Especially strong bondings (and even more so where a sow is coming into season spontaneously) or the first season after a bonding as well as stronger seasons from a bonded sow can result in pee fests from both sides and in some rather overwhelming testosterone stink clouds. Since the testosterone is coming with the pee, boar neutering is not going to stop this.

Repeated mounting
Of course, this is the all-important job! The impatience to get on with the job is not easy to bear. First timers, especially boars meeting girls face to face for the first time after having lived only with boars, do not always quite know which end and which hole is the relevant one but they usually get it by the second or latest the third season.

And of course, they are very reluctant to realise that the fun is over… Some may need to be told rather emphatically by their lady-wife.

After a season:
Reaffirming the bond
Especially after a first or a very strong season, you can sometimes see a boar and a sow exchanging signs of friendship and love on the following day, like licking and snuggling/sleeping close to each other or playing together.


Hormonal Behaviours
In this chapter I want to touch shortly upon occasions when strong hormone output can interfere with everyday life or even group cohesion.

Mega-seasons (multiple sows in season)
Mega-seasons only happen in large groups or rooms with several groups of sows. A bonded boar can be present but doesn’t have to be.

It is basically one sow experiencing a much stronger than normal season and triggers with a massive pheromone cloud other sows close enough in the oestrus cycle to also come into a stronger than normal season spontaneously. The combined cloud can spread through the whole room.
Mega-seasons can last for 3-4 days until every possible sow has come in season and affect a surprising number of them with multiple mounting orgies and mounting chases (usually with a rather frazzled boar following several sows trying to hump each other in a chasing line. As soon as the first sow stops, the others will mount the sow in front of them, making it rather look like a train crash with carriages piling into each other.

The huge excess and excitement is usually followed the room being very quiet since everypig is rather exhausted… It does however connect different groups and cages with each other and create a greater sense of belonging to a colony.

Hormonal sows
Teenage
Most people are not aware that sows also experience greater hormonal output during teenage because this doesn’t lead to potential fall-outs. While some sows will never experience noticeable seasons, especially the weeks around 6 months can bring much stronger seasons.

Ovarian cysts
The majority of sows will develop ovarian cysts of some sort or other during their lives although the majority of them will go unnoticed and never cause any problems. In older age, non-hormonal fluid-filled cysts become the most common. They cause problems primarily by the size they can grow to and by impacting on other organs.

Since the average age of wild guinea pigs is around 3 years and only a small minority will live on to much older age, nature never had the need to engineer an end to fertility. This means that especially our well cared for pet sows will live much longer but with a hormone output goes on at full throttle.

Hormonal ovarian cysts typically start around 18 months onwards although there can be earlier starters. They are typically small growing cysts that can cuase behavioural issues most commonly around the age of 2-4 years although hormone spikes can happen into old age. Physical symptoms (crusty nipples or smooth symmetrical hair loss on the sides and into the belly) do not necessarily appear but when they do, then an ovarian cyst is guaranteed.
Please see a vet when you suspect ovarian cysts; even more so when they are very disruptive or very large. Only a few –hard- cysts will turn cancerous at some point. If they can be removed in time, your sow may live for several years more. There are now several ways to deal with ovarian cysts. A full spay is only needed when there are concerns over the womb.

Moodiness
Sows with active hormonal ovarian cysts can be very short-tempered and in a constant bad mood, which can transmit to her companions. Two hormonal sows at the same time in a group can occasionally lead to a fall out and necessitate a split.

‘Nonstop seasons’
Hormonal ovarian cysts can cause a high hormone output which makes sows behave like they are constantly in season. As you can imagine this is physically very stressful for a sow and usually leads to weight loss. It is also massively disruptive for the whole group.

For more information: Sow Problems 'Down Below' (Ovarian Cysts, Super-seasons, Womb Infection, Pregnancy & Mammary Tumours)


Hormones in Boars
Hormones in boars affect them especially in younger life. They typically start when the testicles start descending around 3-4 months of age with a first major spike and then a life-long testosterone high in the weeks around 6 months of age. These are the classic fall-out ages for boars that are not personality matched when they develop their adult identity.
The weeks around 8-10 months can be nerve-wracking with the boys constantly scrapping. While most boars start to settle down after that bar the occasional strong but short hormone spikes that can last to age 2-3, occasionally boars that have been totally peaceful can ‘wake up’ after 12 months and suddenly experience the big hormones.
Testosterone starts to fizzle out gradually from about 4-5 years of age. Older boars mellow noticeably and are often actually much more companionable than older sows with their ongoing hormone output.

Typical hormonal behaviours

• Increased rumble-strutting
• Increased mounting
• Chases
• Confrontational dominance behaviours
• And lastly (if neither side is willing to step down and the loser cannot remove themselves from the premises) fights with bloody bites

Teenagers
With any teenagers it can help to prevent fights and fall-outs by having a divider handy so you can separate the boys for a couple of days to allow the hormones spike to die down and the boys to calm down and wash the testosterone stink out of their coat on their own.
A reintroduction on neutral territory outside the cage afterwards will show pretty quickly whether the boars are still getting on or whether the grudge factor is too big and their bond is no longer viable. Please accept that too many short-term separations at the first sign of any dominance behaviour can be an added destabilising factor rather than a help.
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

What you cannot do is make your guinea pigs get on. They are independent personalities as much as we humans and you cannot change those.

 

[Wiebke]

7 Stress, Fear and Fear-Aggression

Prey animals and stress levels
Guinea Pigs are prey animals, and as such they are as a whole very sensitive to sudden movements, noises and strange smells. Their prey animal instincts are still all there although generally not quite as sharp and trigger-happy as in their wild cousins and ancestor species from which they have been bred out.

However, some guinea pigs seem to have a naturally very high default stress level setting; whether that is genetic or experienced as their ‘normal’ in the womb of a highly stressed sow. Adopted rescue-born babies born to newly rescued sows from a neglect background have in my own experience often been more affected than the mothers I adopted with them. While the mothers would eventually settle down and relax, many of the babies would never completely do so and it would take a lot less to send them back into a highly stressed state with their instincts on high alert.

Another cause of stress for our pet guinea pigs is our own human pet keeping, which often cuts right through their social needs and instincts; from being often separated and sold at an age when they fully rely on being socialised and taught by following an older guinea pig to being kept as a single to the degree that the most extreme will no longer identify themselves as a guinea pig.

The current much increased commercial mass breeding for large pet shop chains or by uncontrolled breeders for online sales or auctions means that natural socialisation doesn’t necessarily happen and is often interrupted.

All this makes for often very insecure pets with nothing in the way of friendly human interaction before they are thrust into a complex and very alien and complex pet home environment with lots different noises and smells with the expectation of acquiring a living cuddly family toy, happy to be petted and – if lucky – put with a companion not chosen for character compatibility but for their looks or quite simply for being the last ones left on the shop floor.

High stress levels caused by the current mass breeding culture have also given rise to stress related new illnesses like sterile interstitial cystitis, which parallel to feline sterile cystitis seems to primarily affect guinea pigs with that kind of disposition.

Seemingly laid-back and chilled piggies can actually sometimes mask a nervous disposition. It is often the eyes that betra them.

Taking time to settle them in and to get them used to being handled as well as interacting with your piggies through enrichment activities that are not human-centric can bring them out much sooner. Respecting their limits and what they tell us with their body language also allows them to learn to trust us that bit sooner.
Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering and Cuddling Tips


Fear
Signs of fear when being handled
It can often not be quite obvious to a new owner when a guinea pig is frightened but here are some pointers.

White rim around the eyes
The whites of the eyes are usually not prominent in most guinea pigs; if they are rather noticeable as a ring of white in your guinea pigs it is always a clear sign of fear and one of the more obvious pointers.

Shivering
A guinea pig that is starting to shiver when being petted is very stressed. Please put them back in the cage immediately or keep them covered by a fleece on your body to get used to your presence but without any petting.

Very quiet and docile ('Boring toy' reflex)
Especially a newish guinea pig that is very quiet and seemingly allows you to pet and handle them for any length of time and that seems totally unfazed is most likely a very scared guinea pig on their prey animal survival instinct.
What is designed to make a predator wanting to play with their caught prey lose interest to allow them to escape unfortunately has the opposite effect on a human owner looking for a petting pet.

Tweaking
Shallow-biting your hands, exposed skin or covered body parts does generally express displeasure but it can also be born out of fear due to rough handling. The tweaking in this case it generally on the more painful side and can even break your skin.
Tweaking is a carefully judged deliberate gesture that runs the whole spectrum from just lightly pulling on your skin depending on how strongly a piggy feels and how desperate they are to get put back in the cage.
" Biting" And What You Can Do (Biting, Tweaking, Nibbling and Nipping)

Very stiff or tense – Defence bite risk!
A tense guinea pig is always a guinea pig on edge; especially if you remove them from a confrontation with a companion during bonding or in the cage.
Do not handle with bare hands (thick oven gloves are recommended) and avoid any sudden or quick movements in order to not become the recipient of a deep split second instinctive defence bite that can do lasting harm to your hand. The bite is a reflex to any small movement that is perceived as a threat. Thought doesn’t come into it. Give those piggies some time out to calm down before handling them.

Trying to hide behind your back, in your clothing or in your hair
A sudden dash for safety can happen when a piggy on edge is spooked by a sudden sound, movement or scent.

Blind jumping from height
Unfortunately, this escape attempt often happens as a sudden freak jump from the arms, the sofa or chair or from the kitchen or bathroom sink during a bath and it can cause major injuries or even death.
Please contact a vet promptly if your guinea pig is not walking around normally or able to move properly, has a bloody mouth or broken teeth or is deteriorating over the following two days. Spine and internal injuries can take that long to develop.
In order to avoid these accidents, please carry especially any newly arrived guinea pigs in a little conveyance like a small carrier, a tunnel or a lidded cardboard box where you can block any exits with your hands or body.
Cuddle piggies on the floor (if needed by sitting in a puppy run) and bathe them in basin in the shower cubicle or in the bathtub. Please don’t let your children carry guinea pigs around freely or play with them unsupervised.
How To Pick Up And Weigh Your Guinea Pigs Safely (videos)


Fear or fear-aggression when meeting other guinea pigs
In the following I am touching on species interactive behaviours. Insecurity and fear can have many different ‘masks’ so these behaviours are often interpreted wrongly. Differences can often be subtle and take experience to pick up.

Through the bars
Look out for these key behaviours:

Keeping their distance and hiding away
Confident sows can play it cool and ostentatiously ignore a newcomer for a little while but they are doing this while living their normal life without hiding away all the time.

Very excited at the bars straight away
Over-excitement at the bars in adult sows straight away is usually territorial behaviour that is fed by insecurity and fear, not the joy of meeting another piggy.
It can be ever so subtle to pick up and may need experience to spot the slight stiffness or tenseness. Please allow your piggies several days to settle down next to each other and don’t introduce straight away. It is usually an outright fail.

Lying next to each other through the bars
This is usually hostile territorial behaviour and is one of the most frequently misinterpreted behaviours. Friendship needs a little time to grow and is generally accompanied by clear friendship offers like a body wash – ideally from both sides.
When two rather insecure piggies meet through the bars, they can quickly get into a teeth chattering match. Give them a few more days to see whether they can settle down or not.


General attitudes during bonding or dominance spats
Over the top dominance
Any piggy over four months that is full on straight from the word go when face to face with new mates is very often masking their insecurity with trying to enforce submission.
Boars will often hump sows straight away without saying hello, which is not necessarily going down well with any dominant or fear-aggressive ladies.
Going on overload
Guinea pigs, especially those with social deficits or very little confidence, can feel overwhelmed during bonding. You can read that in their tense body language and increasing use of defensive behaviours. Abort the bonding and allow the piggy to calm down and get their bearings over the next few days.

Masking dominance behaviours during measuring up
Here is how you can spot that a guinea pig is not able to back up the dominance they are showing with the strength of their personality:

Rumble-strutting
The more a boar is wiggling with their bum, the less able they are to claim dominance. A confident boar has a sonorous rumble but moves the weight from one back foot to the other only gently.

Facing off
The less confident a guinea pig is the more at a slant or sideways they will stand, so they can run off at any time. A confident piggy will be face-on frontally.

Body language not matching up with bold behaviour
A confident guinea pig expresses their dominance simply by their bearing and staring down other piggies front on. A ‘masker’ will break down sooner rather than later because they cannot back it up.


Defensive behaviours often mistaken for aggression
The following behaviours are often listed as aggressive; they are actually the opposite. They are all designed to tell the other guinea pig or guinea pigs to stay away. I am listing them in ascending order from the mild to the desperate.

Teeth chattering
This means ‘don’t like you and I don't like this situation’. Instant teeth chattering between two piggies when they meet is in my experience often the result of two fear-aggressive piggies coming face to face.
It takes a bit more effort to get a confident piggy to teeth chatter back but when the whole group does it, they are much more likely to close ranks against the newcomer; especially if the newcomer will not submit easily or at all. The louder and stronger the chattering, the stronger the feelings.

Yawning
Yawning into the face of another guinea pig is a warning to stay out of their private space. It translates as ‘Stay off or…’.
This is however not followed up if the other side keeps pushing and usually results in the yawning piggy running away.

Lunging
Lunging is a strictly defensive behaviour. It is a physical warning to stay away. You can sometimes see two piggies hopping at each other. The stronger the jumping, the more desperate the piggy.

Flying tackles
This is the ultimate and strongest warning possible to stay away. If the other side heeds the warning and backs off, then there is a chance that a confrontation can be avoided. If not, you will see a fighting ball next and need to separate immediately – but never with your bare hands!

Instinctive defence biting
A guinea pig that is or feels trapped and crowded by a stronger contender will see their only way out by a full-on bite to the lips or the nearest body part at the smallest movement – whether that is the opponent, your hand or a predator. There is no thought; it is a split-second reaction.
Most fighting bites are actually defensive in nature rather than offensive and motivated by fear and not outright aggression. Huts with just one exit are prime flash points, as are dead corners.
Killing bites are thankfully extremely rare and always accidental; they only happen when a sensitive spot is hit. However, the bites of a desperate piggy in fear of its life are deep and are meant to be so.
I hope that this instalment is helping you to spot better when a guinea pig is afraid or feeling out of their depth, so you can give them the breathing space and calming down time that they need - whether that is days, weeks, months and in a few piggies sadly, never. They will however in most cases work out as next door neighbours with interaction through the bars but their own safe territory.

Single Guinea Pigs - Challenges and Responsibilities
Moody Guinea Pigs: Depression, Bullying, Aggression, Stress, Fear and Antisocial Behaviour
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics

 

[Wiebke]

8 Feeling Down

Illness and pain
Before you think about bullying and depression, it is important to keep in mind that guinea pigs are prey animals and that they can depress signs of illness or pain to an amazing degree. By the time you see distinct symptoms, your piggy is usually quite ill. It is therefore important that you always check out the illness angle first before you are looking at any others.

Weekly weighing and health checks
It is therefore also crucial that you weigh and body check once weekly throughout the lifetime; this is a potentially life saving first line of defence. Knowing what is normal for your piggy helps you spot better when there are changes.

These guide links here tell you what to look for and when you need to act:
Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support
Weight - Monitoring and Management (Underweight & Overweight)
Guinea pig body quirks - What is normal or not during the weekly check

Early signs of illness and pain
A slow loss of appetite can often only be caught by weighing because you cannot control the hay intake by eye even though it makes over three quarters of the daily food intake. Stepping in with feeding and watering support can be crucial.
In order to spot early signs of illness and pain, you will find these links here very helpful:
Early Signs Of Illness
Signs of Pain in Guinea Pigs

Serious accidents and illness
However, some illnesses can develop very quickly or come on suddenly, not to mention accidents.
Any major loss of appetite/refusing to take on food and water, loss of mobility or refusal to move around, lethargy etc.

These guides here help you judge just how serious a health problem is and how soon you need to see a vet. The first link will hopefully help you to judge just how urgent your problem is and the second link gets you to the real emergencies directly.
How Soon Should My Guinea Pig See A Vet? - A Quick Guide
List Of Life And Death Out-of-hours Emergencies

First Aid: Immediate Care Measures and Non-medication Products (contains a list of common issues and what to do)
How to Improvise Feeding Support in an Emergency

Emergency and Crisis Care as well as Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment
Is My Guinea Pig Dying?

If in any doubt, please speak to your vet/out-of-hours or 24 hours vet clinic and open a support thread in our Health/Illness Corner. Please respect that we are a UK based forum (time zones) and we are all doing this for free in our own free time.

Grieving
Like humans, guinea pigs react very differently to a loss.

Slow passing
When guinea pigs feel very ill, they will generally instinctively remove themselves from the group. In a cage situation, this translates to either holing up in a cosy or or a cage corner, facing into the corner. Their mates may come for a goodbye visit and a quick check on the dead body in the case of a natural passing at home or ignoring the body altogether, especially if it is brought home after pts/euthanasia at the vets.
It is only very closely bonded couples or mates with emotional dependencies (including a much younger mate) that will stay with a dying piggy that has removed themselves from their world. It also won't prevent the odd over the top reactions, like a hormone spike or loss of appetite.

Sudden death
It is the sudden, unforeseeable deaths that can really throw the companions. Stronger reactions are more common, including loss of appetite At the extreme you can see them trying to desperately wake up their companion.
Please remove the body gently.

Guinea pig grieving
Some guinea pigs will just carry on as normal; don't make the mistake to think they are not affected - like some humans they are just not showing it and are finding consolation in their daily routine.
Others will be more withdrawn and not interested in your in attempts to comfort them for several days (about 4 days seems to be the average.

Please don't clean the cage or remove the deceased piggy's stuff during that time and allow the scent to fade away naturally. It doesn't matter for once if the cage gets more grotty and smelly for once and you have to wait a week. If a bereaved piggy is snuggling up with a cosy or hut etc. of their companion's, please let them. It is their way of finding comfort.

Acute pining
It is actually pretty rare that a companion will lose the will to live themselves after the loss of a companion. Mostly, the shock of a loss can lower the immune system and allow underlying health issues or an infectious opportunistic illness to come through. Please always have a companion vet checked if they are not quite right.

Very often you can trigger the eating/drinking reflex to kick in again by syringe feeding if it is mostly just a shock reaction. As long as a piggy is eating and drinking by themselves, they will hold. A few will eat but cannot cope with being alone; for these you may have to look for a new friend sooner but they are generally desperate for company.

Please don't fall prey to a knee jerk reaction and rush out to get a new guinea pig on spec unless you are really dealing with proper acute pining and the above measures have not worked. If you try to bond a piggy that is still mourning and not yet open for new company, the bonding is highly likely to fail. Bringing home a new piggy on spec is always somewhat risky and you should ideally have a plan B at the ready. Please wait at least until a grieving guinea pig is picking up their normal routine again. Guinea pigs don't feel any less deeply than us but their survival instinct is much stronger and more immediate.

In most cases, you have ideally 1-4 weeks time (or even longer, like in the case of boar neutering) to find new company. Doing it right is in the long term more valuable than doing a rush job and ending with a failure. This time span will also allow you to get through the roughest part of your own slower human grieving.
The last chapter in our singles guide discusses the signs by which you can tell if a piggy should have new company:
Single Guinea Pigs - Challenges and Responsibilities

You may find these guides here helpful:
A Practical and Sensitive Guide to Dying, Terminal Illness and Euthanasia in Guinea Pigs
Operation or Terminal Care/Euthanasia? - Helpful Questions to Ask Ahead or in Hindsight

Looking After a Bereaved Guinea Pig (includes huma 'replacement' concerns)
Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children
Pet Death: How To Tell The Children? (Tips and Resources)

The 'killing' myth
Finding a dead piggy with deep gashes usually to their cheeks/eye area or partly eaten dead newborns is hugely upsetting. However, it is not a case of murder, rather the opposite!

These incidents are in fact the result of increasingly frantic attempts to wake up a suddenly deceased companion, or in the case of newborns the result of a miscarriage with dead babies in a very stressful situation. The mother has been trying to wake up her dead pups and is then trying to avoid attracting predators. Any cases we have come across did happen in severe neglect/sub-standard care with high stress situations where the mother was unable to move away from the birthing place with its characteristic scent and have to be seen in this context.
And no, a boar who is present during the birth will also not kill any babies, either - not that he should be present in the first place.


Depression
Diagnosing depression is a very tricky thing, since we cannot ask guinea pigs directly. It should at all times only be a last ditch vet diagnosis after everything else has been ruled out. It is generally much more likely that a hidden health issue ultimately turns out to be the real cause.

What are likely scenarios for depression?
Single and especially bereaved guinea pigs having lost long term company are prime candidates for sliding into withdrawal when they lack the round the clock interaction with other of their kind - even if it is just through the bars.
Our Singles guide deals with various scenarios and their specific challenges, finding suitable companionship and lastly how you can tell when they transfer their own social needs onto you or become unhappy.
Single Guinea Pigs - Challenges and Responsibilities

Bullied piggies can also become withdrawn and may lose weight if blocked from accessing food. Again, this can only be done if any health potential problems have been expcluded.
Moody Guinea Pigs: Depression, Bullying, Aggression, Stress, Fear and Antisocial Behaviour

Next door companionship
If you cannot bond, you can always keep a single piggy next to other guinea pigs. Boars can live next to other boars, mixed pairs/groups (with a neutered boar) or other sows in any number. Sows can live next to mixed pairs or groups (with a neutered boar), any sows in whatever number and they can live next to a single boar because he hasn't got anybody to fight and fall out with.
However sows cannot live next to any boars-only pairs or larger groups. That is a fail-safe recipe for disaster and fall-outs.

Next door companionship with full interaction through bars allowing all levels of communication (scent/pheromones, sight/body language and vocalisation) is by far the next best solution after a failed bonding or for a guinea pig unsuitable for bonding.
What does not qualify as next door companionship is stacked cages or cages that allow only vocal contact without sight and scent exchange.

How to safe-proof any dividers:
- Cable-tie any dividing grids and any adjoining grids as well; both at the top and the bottom so they can withstand any rattling and there is no risk of wiggling through.
- You can move flat hay trays in both cage next to each other as that makes for good interaction but please don't place anything by the grids that especially boars can use as a launch pad to climb or jump over the divider or any cage grids.
- Place a suitable piece of plywood over the top of the divider to prevent any climping or jumps or peg a sheet across instead.

Please accept that there are some piggies that will not accept new companionship in any form (singles who no longer see themselves as guinea pigs, extremely fear-aggressive piggies, piggies with rare behavioural issues or bereaved piggies who are no longer open for a new companionship; these are mostly older piggies, especially older sows. This is is however a minority.
Single Guinea Pigs - Challenges and Responsibilities

 

[Wiebke]

9 Same and Similar Behaviours with Different Meanings
We have seen how important it is knowing the social context and situation in which we see and interpret behaviours; especially those that can be used in very different contexts and then modified in intensity.

Same behaviour with different meanings depending on the context
I want to recap a few of those behaviours that have appeared with different functions in very different contexts.

Rumble-strutting
Rumble-strutting is perhaps the most variable of behaviours.

Expressing themself; happiness
- In boars it can be just an expression of 'boarliness' - all is well in the boar world. This is not rarely seguing straight into a popcorning session.
'Popcorning' (jumping) and 'zooming' (running) - Joy and exuberance (videos)
- It can be a way of just announcing their presence, especially if sows are around. Newly bonded neutered boars can temporarily lose most of the vocabulary and nearly everything comes out as a rumble. Mostly because they are either happy or hungry (food wheek) - or both.

Measuring up and boar hakas
- Boars measure up against each other by rumble-strutting against each other. He who has the more sonorous rumble wins; especially with in combination with only a stately shift in weight from one back leg to the other. This is very much a way of keeping fights down, provided the loser can remove himself from the territory.
Boars can also use rumble-strutting as a way to deline their territory against a neighbour. In this case, it is both a measuring up as well as a territorial behaviour. I call this a 'boar haka'.
The more a boar wiggles with his bum (including the bum wiggling with him), the less confident and the less of a rival he is. This comes generally with a high voice in a young boar in training or a young but not confident contender.
- The same display rumble-strut is also used for wooing sows and for impressing them. It is the sows who accept a boar into their group and who have ultimate control over the mating. Some dominant sows will prefer a submissive boar who cannot challenge their leadership; or none at all.

Dominance rumble-strutting is practised by both genders
With boars it can be one of the mild everyday interactive behaviours while rumble-strutting in sows is always a dominance gesture; their rumble is higher and more liquid. The body language will express just how friendly or dominant the behaviour is meant to be. Rumble-strutting can also be used to reinforce the leadership against an underboar; often during the group establishment phase. Again, the body language and intensity can tell you just how dominant it is meant to be.
Sows can use rumble-strutting to shock and warn a too pushy or persistent boar in the run up to mating but it can be part of the group establishment or re-establishment after a change, especially when the leader is somewhat insecure. Most commonly it is seen in sows coming into a strong season or it can be an indication of ovarian cyst if used regularly in adult sows out of any of these contexts.


Mounting
Mounting is another behaviour that is practised by both genders.

Sexual mounting
In the run up of becoming fertile for a short time right at the end of a season, a sow in the grip of stronger hormones can have the urge to mount for several hours. In a group, it usually the sow just ranked below (or if lacking that, just ranked above) that is at the receiving end. It can very occasionally happen to a perplexed 'husboar'.
In larger groups, the massive pheromone cloud can trigger several sows to come into season at once so you can have a kind of chase after each other that ends up with a mounting pile up of three or four sows, each mounting the one in front of her, with the poor boar usually coming last.
Sows will accept coupling with a boar only when they are fertile. They will sit still for a moment and crucially lift their bum off the ground. The actual mating is a very quick process that lasts too short for you to step in. However, sow pheromones can really get to a boar and the gonads can sometimes take over.
The whole process is usually very vocal.
When Sows Experience A Strong Season (videos)

Dominance mounting
When meeting a sow or a group of sows for the first time, a more dominant or over-excited (please safely neutered) boar will try to mount with any sow as his way of introducing himself. Submissive sows will allow themselves to be mounted as a sign of acceptance but may refuse him later on.
It is not rare that boars, especially those that are not prepared for sows have their brain scrambled by sow pheromones and will incessantly mount mindly from whatever angle, as long as it up - wether that is the head, the sides or the back.

Dominant sows will refuse mounting, and if a boar persists this can end in a non-aggressive tussle (where both parties try their best to not step over the line into a fight) and a failed bonding. They will establish a personal no go zone around them and will only accept being sexually mounted when the time is right.

While most adult sows dominance mount in connection with ovarian cysts, in boars mounting can run the whole gamut from the really mild 'hey, I'm just saying hello, mate' to the full strength over the top hormonal mounting during a testosterone spike, which happens mostly during teenage but can occasionally also last into younger adulthood. If the mounting becomes too persistent and enough to cross over into bullying a submissive mate or triggering a fight with a more dominant one, it is best to put a divider for two days between the two boars to allow the boys to cool down. Follow up with a formal re-intro on neutral ground to see whether the bond is still functional. This works for piggies of all ages and genders.
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Bonds In Trouble


Similar sounding/looking behaviours with different meanings

Rumbling, growling and purring
These three very different behaviours can sound very similar to the uninitiated, so I am grouping them together in order to make a distinction clearer.
Rumbling /Rumble-strutting
Liquid sustained rumbling comes with a bum wiggle; it is a mild measuring up and displaying behaviour mostly of boars.
Growling
This is a sharp short deep rrrr in the throat. It is a sound of displeasure, often as a reaction to a sudden sharp noise, like a door banging. It can also be a reaction to something you are doing if your grooming is not to your piggy’s liking.
Purring
Purring sounds very similar to a cat’s purring. It is usually only heard during a petting session and comes with a very relaxed body. It is not a behaviour that is seen in social interaction between guinea pigs and is one of the new behaviours developed as domestic animals living with humans that I am looking at in the next chapter.

Please keep in mind that many piggies don’t love being petted for long periods if they are allowed to have their say and would rather return to the cage after a rather sort petting session. So don’t beat yourself up if yours don’t purr – giving them the choice and a say in how and how long they interact with you makes them ultimately happier.


'Biting' (Biting, Tweaking, Nibbling, Nipping)
For all the various biting behaviours with very different contexts and purposes, please read this link here, which explains them all in-depth.
" Biting" And What You Can Do (Biting, Tweaking, Nibbling and Nipping)

 

[Wiebke]

10 Old and New Behaviours

In this last chapter of my exploration of guinea big behaviours with their different functions in various situations and how guinea pigs can modify them to express themselves in much more differentiated and subtle ways than we would expect I am adding the dimension of time to the catalogue of behaviours.

Our guinea pigs have made a huge journey from the wild species they were bred out from several thousands of years ago to serve not just as a vital reliable resource of meat protein for farmers in a notoriously volatile Andean climate but one that has been in fact so crucial that guinea pigs have been playing a central role in religious ceremonies and the huge communal feasts that were connected to them and that were also the – peaceful – glue in the diplomatic interaction not just between communities but also between whole tribes of the Andes region. Even the Incas expanded their empire mostly by peaceful feasting means and much less by war before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and of European farm animals changed it all forever about 500 years ago.

Domestication has brought huge changes to the newly bred out species. Farmed guinea pigs exchanged the loss of their much wider territories and a distinct breeding season against a much greater food security, dramatically reduced group territories and increasingly larger and flexible groups. They were no longer dependent on the season of plenty in terms of fresh grass to have their pups and enjoyed better protection from ground and aerial predators.
But they also yielded control over their procreation to humans and they needed to adapt to a very different environment that no longer demanded a taxi driver’s map memory but the ability to find flexible and creative solutions in a more complex and changing environment.
However, with that change from wild to farm animals some behaviours have become increasingly obsolete and were gradually forgotten as they lost their immediate context and use.


Half-buried behaviours
A few behavioursare just about clinging on, mostly dormant, but they can make an unexpected appearance and majorly puzzle us owners.

Prey animal instincts
I want to call attention back to prey animal instincts which I have explained right at the start of this series, but which also belong into this group.

They are much more muted and dormant in our domestic pets although never totally absent compared to the several wild species of guinea pigs.

But these instincts can be revived and sharpened in badly neglected guinea pigs who rely on them in their fight for survival of the fittest, as rescues can testify that have dealt with half crazed piggies jumping blindly into or over walls and grids and that can be hardly handled, not even to make them more comfortable.

Spring time boar hormone 'wake up'
Domestic guinea pigs have lost their natural breeding season of 3-4 births over the warmer half of the year that we see in the wild guinea pig species. This change is a result of the way domesticated guinea pigs have been kept as farmyard animals and the much improved steady access to food all year round they have had for thousands of years now.

Nevertheless, some boars (especially outdoors ones with stronger seasonal changes) still retain an echo of the onset of the breeding season when their hormones are waking up with the warmer, longer days and there is suddenly a lot more rumble-strutting, mounting and dominance going on. It only leads to problems in pairs with already existing underlying problems.

Chirping
If there is one behaviour that continues to fascinate and mystify, then it is chirping like a bird. It is mostly just a monotone chilping that rather resembles that of a sparrow on fast forward. It can however be modulated in volume, speed, and even go up and down a very little if you listen to a frequent chirper.

Most guinea pigs go happily through life without ever chirping. It is only a small minority that will do it and of those most will only ever chirp once in the lives.

When it quite literally bursts out for the very first time – I once had the privilege to watch the singer while it happened – it surprises the piggy themselves just as much as any listeners. My Cerian was rocking on her feet and blinking her eyes at the strange sounds that suddenly came out of her mouth. But once she had her bearings and control, she then started to play around with it.

If you have a chirper, and especially if you happen to have a more regular chirper, then it is much more likely that other piggies in the room will also be stimulated by the experience and that you will hear chirping more frequently. Some piggies seem to rather find some joy in frequent chirping concerts…
In fact, in my Tribe chirping has been handed down in an unbroken chain of students since my Heulwen started it a dozen years ago. It can be just one chirper or several contemporaries who will chirp. What is extremely rare is a chirping duet.

It is also not quite a coincidence that chirping is making a bit more of a renaissance with all the videos and audios shared online and played within their hearing.

There is a clear situational component to chirping. With a live chirper in the room, the Tribe simply goes very quiet but there is usually no panic reaction, whereas playing a video or audio within their hearing can send them stampeding for cover, irrespective of whether it is a replay of their own chirping or an audio from somewhere else.

Chirping in my own experience tends to most commonly happen when there is a sense of tension or general unease in the room; usually from a piggy somewhere under cover and not out in the open so it usually not quite straight forward to work out who the singer is. The trigger can be either of a personality clash/group issue or a neighbourhood feud problem, or because of smells or noises that may not upset us (or that we may not even be able to smell or hear properly) or even if there is a stressful human situation with lots of tension.

One skittish piggy running for cover repeatedly over the course of a day or two can upset the whole piggy room. At other times there is no indication whatsoever (not even to the other piggies), even if the cause is beyond our own human senses. In this case, live chirping can occasionally trigger a stampede.

But because of this obvious situational tie my personal guess – and it can only ever be a guess – is that it could have either been some kind of danger alert rather than a mere expression of stress. If it was just an expression of personal stress, it wouldn’t trigger an instinctive run for cover when heard out of context.

You are welcome to watch chirping videos (they are quite amazing) but I would recommend to do so out of hearing of your own guinea pig; chirping has a much less pleasant meaning to them that it does to you even if we will likely never know what it is.
Chirping - Taking Stock of a Mystery Behaviour


Acquired Behaviours
It is safe to assume that some guinea pigs along the line have always had a more special and closer relationship with people and crossed the line to become what we call pets, whether that was because of their personality or an interesting coat mutation that made them special.

But in their direct interaction with humans, guinea pigs had t find new ways to communicate and with the current huge rise and worldwide spread of guinea pigs.


Wide-spread behaviours not seen in wild guinea pigs
There are some behaviours that must go back thousands of years that have likely been re-purposed for a domestic context.

The big food wheek
It won’t come as a surprise that the oldest behaviour that is not found in wild guinea pig is loudly begging for food and that after a few thousands of years it is by now near instinctive and becoming more so as time passes.

Purring
The specific sound that is very similar to cat purring when stroked and that is very similar to a repeated growl of displeasure, just not as sharp, and doesn’t come with any signs of trying to free themselves from being stroked by a human is another more recent but consistent behaviour. What it really means is still a bit of a mystery.


Individual new behaviours
Intensive pet keeping and human interaction is in evolutionary terms a very new phenomenon, so it is not surprising that the ways guinea pigs express themselves when trying to communicate with another species (us humans) can vary a lot.

Attention seeking behaviours
The biggest tussles are over seeking our attention, as far as guinea pigs are concerned, anything you react to is a success. Unfortunately for us, we tend to react much more promptly and reliably to what irks us – so ignoring the bottle banging at 3 am may be hard work but piggies are not stupid and will pick up on it sooner rather than later. The same goes for any treats pester power.
Who is the Boss - Your Guinea Pig or You?

Not liking or having had enough handling
A major area is of course handling and lap time. Guinea pigs have their individual ways to tell you when they do not like being picked up or groomed or they have had enough cuddling and want to go home, from tweaking fingers or other body parts within reach, pulling clothing, peeing on you if you ignore more polite reminders.

Be open to learn what your piggies are trying to tell you and see it not as just naughty behaviour. You can work out a kind of 'contract' of where you and where your piggies draw the lines with each side giving clear warnings and -importantly - having each their warnings heeded.
I call this mix of cavy and human understanding a ‘trade language’ that is based in mutual respect and trust. This approach will draw you deeper into the piggy world if you follow your piggies into their own complex world and learn to see it from their eyes and not just your own.


Guinea pig brains have changed during domestication and shifted towards increased creative problem solving. You can help that process with your own understanding, interaction and feedback but especially by challenging your guinea pigs in different problem solving enrichment activities which don’t require expensive pet shop toys, just making them work for their daily veg, pellets, forage and hay in different ways.


Conclusion

I hope that you have found my journey through guinea pig behaviours in a range of different settings both helpful and interesting. It is rather a revelation just how complex guinea pig interaction actually is and how much we are missing if we just look at any given behaviour as having just one meaning. It is like us hearing a policeman’s whistle as compared to listening an oboe crying, laughing and singing with joy. The closer you look at how piggies deal with each other and deal with us, the more they are just like people in a fur coat. Or that we humans are actually not so very different…

The more closely we continue to look, the more we will learn both as owners and as a collective of owners sharing observations and experiences instead of just taking things for granted. Guinea pigs in their third incarnation as house pets have to adapt yet again to a very different new and challenging environment. Over the generations their brain and their problem solving facilities will continue to gradually change further and so will how they deal with us humans.



While I take a certain degree of pride in being the first to ever attempt such a wide-ranging and detailed look at guinea pig behaviours, it is however also tinged with some sadness that as humans we have for far too long seen our pets only as an extension of our human desires and perception. Our focus has traditionally been on how to best make them fit our expectations and not on us making our ownership fit for their own needs, and sadly still persists widely. I can only hope that the more we can all help to keep that change in our outlook going and gaining track, the more we will discover just how much more joy we get back in return.
It doesn’t do us credit as a supposedly clever species to wait and expect our supposedly dumb pets to figure out humans and their demands because we are too stuck up on our limiting pedestal to get down to eye level in order to learn to speak cavy and to work on a mutually agreed syllabus of shared concepts we can exchange with mutual respect.


With my deepest thanks to my all-time special piggy Minx (2004-07) for opening my eyes and for taking me on a three years long rollercoaster ride at the end of which nothing would ever be the same. My life has been truly blessed with you challenging me daily to keep up with you.
Twenty years on and coming up to a hundred wonderful guinea pigs later, I still miss you like crazy. God broke the mould when he made you.