Hi all. My male guinea pig who is almost 6 years old has recently hardly been eating any food while his cagemate is in the cage with him. I'm pretty sure this is because his cagemate has been barbering him and so he has a lot of patches on him where his fur has clearly been chewed, making it look like he has bald spots. He's been living with this guinea pig since August because his other cagemate who he lived with for about 4 years sadly passed away in July. There have not been any problems up until this point. I noticed the barbering started happening about a week ago but only yesterday I started to notice him hardly eating. So I took his cagemate out of the cage and saw him eating normally again. But whenever they are both in the cage together all he does is lay under the wooden platform he has in his cage and barely touches his food. I have done this 3 times now but it seems ridiculous to keep having to do this all the time, especially since I don't like having a guinea pigs out for a long period of time. I've been keeping his cagemate out for about an 1 and 30 minutes each time. I don't mind doing it if I really have to but I'm sure there's better options. The only other thing I can think of is having them be separated but like I said I'd like to see if there's any other options than the two I'm thinking of right now.
If I need to provide any more information then I can. Please help I really don't know what to do and I don't want him to just stop eating altogether.
If I need to provide any more information then I can. Please help I really don't know what to do and I don't want him to just stop eating altogether.
