Guinea Pig Dominance?

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Cookie_Biscuit

Cookie_Biscuit

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Hello, we have recently bought some guinea pigs from pets at home, (Two Boars) who are about 5 months old. When we were choosing them there were three in the cage and the two we picked (Cookie and Chocolate) seemed to be happy with each other. They would follow each other around and not pay attention to the other so we thought they would be "Friends". (We have had two boars before, they seemed to be fine together and were really sweet. They seemed to sort out dominance quite quickly.)
As we were bringing them home in the car, there was some violent shaking and squeaking in the box as they were terrified of all the new sounds. We brought them home and left them in their cage for about a day to let them calm down. When we started feeding them and picking them up, I noticed that Cookie had some fur on his back missing/pulled out, and had a bite mark and scab. No blood was dripping because it had already scabbed up. We took him to the vets and they gave us some antibiotics. (Poor thing, they gave us a syringe to squirt it into his mouth!) It seems to be healing, but we are not sure if this was from the third guinea pig in the pet shop, from his brother, chocolate, or when they were scrabbling about in the box. They were fine for two days but then started showing clear aggression and one 3 second fight but we managed to separate them with a towel. (Thankfully no fresh cuts or bites!) We put a "divider" (a huge lid) in the cage so they could have some time alone from each other. When we took it out about an hour later they were fine during the night with no scraps. In the morning, Chocolate wasn't letting Cookie into the hidey bit, a part sectioned off (a bit like a room) which they both liked. He kept going in and they would chatter, puff their fur and stand tall. They would keep swapping around in an out. We decided to unscrew it so they wouldn't be fighting over it. We read online that boars should have two of everything, so we gave them two chew sticks, two tubes, two food bowls and eventually two water bottles. They still seem to fight!
We have tried a buddy bath and we cleaned and scrubbed everything in the cage. They were fine afterwards but the next day (today) they seem to be showing aggression. We bought them a run, and some new toys and put them on grass (neutral territory) and Cookie seemed to be mounting Chocolate (the pet shop told us they are both boars) and Chocolate looked terrified. I picked him up and gave him a cuddle which seemed to calm him down and put him back in again. They started chattering and Cookie was following Chocolate, and they had a quick fight so C took cookie out (gave me a bite) and put him in the cage and let Chocolate run for a bit. I then put Chocolate in the cage too and then they were chattering AGAIN! We divided it and left them. We tried taking it out but they still seemed upset so we put it back in again. We took it out just now and seem to be fine. (They calm down in the evenings.)

We think they are trying to figure out dominance, but not really sure. Apparently this is their "Hormonal stage"?
trying to work out how to attach a video, should we separate them? Please help!
 
I am having the same problem as you, I also got my gp's from pets at home my boys are about 13 weeks old (well that's what I was told) sorry I'm no help
 
The cage is a rabbit size cage 4ft x 2ft. We are getting lots of confilicting advice about separating them - lots of people say it is a stage that boars have to and will go through and that if we separate them now they will never be able to go back together again. Today they have started squeaking more and making more normal guinea pig noises that we are used to from previous experience but they are also doing some strange jumping now. They still seem to spend most of their time hastling each other.
 
The strange jumping sounds like pop-corning (do a search on Youtube if you aren't sure) and this is a good sign. It means they are happy :nod:

And unfortunately for 2 boars that cage size is really too small. They need a lot of space, and should be in a cage that is at least 150cm long.
Do they get out of their cage very often for floor time or a change of scenery?
You also mentioned chew sticks. Are these also from the pet shop (sticks you hang on the side of the cage for them to eat) or pieces of wood for them to chew?
If they are from the pet shop and not just a lump of natural wood then they might contain sugar which could be adding to their problems.

But if they are pop-corning, and making otehr noises it sounds like there really is hope that they will settle down and eventually be fine.
Maybe consider a larger cage and lots of floor time to give things a chance.
 
Ah okay I see. We bought the rabbit cage as the guinea pig one was even smaller! We will try to get a bigger cage and take out the sticks. :D
 
I completely get what a difficult thing this is to see happening but personally i would say you definitely need to separate them before either of them seriously hurt one another. Pets at home are awful at selling boars together when they're so young and are all getting on well before their hormones start to kick in. I bought four males at the same time and we had to split them into two pairs but then sadly one of ours suddenly died and we had to change the pairs around again and recently we got a new guinea pig for one of ours left on its own but they've just started fighting too! a lot of drama to deal with that P@H to tell people to be prepared for!

one thing i would suggest is that the little hidey bit you mentioned you should get another one or cut another entrance/exit into it so that neither of them can block the entrance/exit when they are both in it (otherwise if they start fighting whilst they're both inside it, it means they can't run away from each other and then serious injuries could be caused). depending on your situation you could look at separating these two and then bonding them with baby boars when they're a few more months older?
 
I think its best that we separate them. When I came home, they looked completely fine, curled up in the hay on different ends of the cage. When I went back out to double check I noticed that chocolate had a puffed up eye. When I looked closer it seemed like they had a fight and cookie bit chocolate on the eyelid. There didn't seem to be any blood but it was obviously irritated. When I checked him all over some fur seemed to be a little puffed up on his bottom and there were some terrible cuts and bites there which had already scabbed over that we never noticed before. I gave him some anaesthetic we had left over from Cookies visit to the vets (we gave chocolate the same amount we gave cookie, 2.5ml). We still had an indoor cage left over from our other guineas, so we put cookie in there with lots of hay and sawdust. We put the cages right up next to each other so they can hear and smell each other (and kind of see each other) so they don't get lonely:bye:. We are giving them lots of attention and veg. They seem really happy and stress-free when they eat alone and run around in their hay. (When we refill the hay they start popcorning! So cute!)

Chocolates cage is the one we kept both of them in before (4ftx2ft), and Cookies new cage is meant to be indoor but its outdoors right now (we will bring it in at night or when it gets cold) and its 96cmx50cm is this okay?

We will tell you how they are doing in a few days :nod: x

P.s: I read online that teddies make them less lonely, is this true? If so do you know where I can buy some guinea-safe toys?
 
I'm so sorry your boys have fallen out already, it's really very stressful to go through. My boys fell out but they were older (unwanted kids pets I got on gumtree) I now have 4 boys split between a 2x6 and a 2x5 c&c cage. These new pairs of boys are happily living together, they occasionally squabble and push each other about but think its just boys being boys. :box:

Good luck with your boys. They should be ok even living through the bars from each other. And as for your teddy question any teddy as long as they don't have plastic/hard eyes etc on them. So usually ones designed for safe use by babies are ok for piggies. However if they chew it I would remove it.
 
Think you will need a new cage too. 96 cm is tiny even if only for one.
 
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