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having only one piggy is really bad for his/her health?

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scozy

I currently have one young female guinea pig for about 4 1/2 months. Does a piggy get depressed and her health suffers if she is kept alone? I read several articles saying that.

I cannot add another piggy, but I am concering her health. Am I a bad piggy owner?
 
Nope

One piggy can be fine although its not ideal.
As long as your piggy gets the right food, cuddles, and lots of out of cage time to stretch her legs she will be fine
 
it depends how much attention you give the piggy. does it live indoors or outside?
if its outside i would be concerned about the loneliness.
 
Well I'm going to disagree - I had a single pig, Fudge, my first one and he used to wheek loudly all the time. Now he's currently living alongside girls and is much much happier and I'm considering either neutering him to go with them or getting a baby boar to keep him company.

Guinea pigs are sociable creatures and as much as we love them we can't offer them guineapig love or language. If you have the recommended space for one pig then you ought to be able to fit another in.

Why do you say you can't get another pig?
 
Agree with Kayjay - I hate seeing sociable animals kept singly. I would say that company is one of the basic things that they need. I do understand that some people haven't been able to introduce another one in, that's different.
 
kayjay said:
Well I'm going to disagree - I had a single pig, Fudge, my first one and he used to wheek loudly all the time. Now he's currently living alongside girls and is much much happier and I'm considering either neutering him to go with them or getting a baby boar to keep him company.

Guinea pigs are sociable creatures and as much as we love them we can't offer them guineapig love or language. If you have the recommended space for one pig then you ought to be able to fit another in.

Why do you say you can't get another pig?
Click to expand...
Can it affect their health though?
 
darkest.dreaming said:
kayjay said:
Well I'm going to disagree - I had a single pig, Fudge, my first one and he used to wheek loudly all the time. Now he's currently living alongside girls and is much much happier and I'm considering either neutering him to go with them or getting a baby boar to keep him company.

Guinea pigs are sociable creatures and as much as we love them we can't offer them guineapig love or language. If you have the recommended space for one pig then you ought to be able to fit another in.

Why do you say you can't get another pig?
Click to expand...
Can it affect their health though?
Click to expand...

In what way?
 
I don't think it's bad for their health at all. Yes it's ideal if they have a buddy for their company, but not a neccessity.

Tonic was with Jin for 4 years and then when he died, Ton was on his own for just over a year. He had loads of attention from me. At the same time, I had my girlies and never thought for a moment about neutering Ton to go with them.
 
My guinea pig Rachael lives in a 2X3 C&C cage, indoors. The reason I cannot have another one is that I decided to move to CA after the graduation in May and flying with two guinea pigs must costly... It is not impossible to have two guiea pigs right now, but I would rather welcome another piggy when I settled...
 
that sounds a good compromise to me, ideally pigs do need thier own type company but as long as you spend quality time with her until you can get her a mate that should be ok the only helath drawback I would think would occur would be depression but having you spoil her should keep her going until you can extend your piggys family
 
Here is an update...

I went to the same humane society and found an about 2-year-old female. She happened to be a biological mother of my guinea pig, Rachael.

I thought this was going to be a great pairing and allowed them to get to know each other. For the first 15 minutes, Rachael's fur was fluffed up and both of them were sniffing each other's butt. Then the mother gave threatening sound and drove Rachael away. Rachael tried several times to get close to the mother's mouth then the mother tried to nip Rachael and chased Rachael who was running away from her.

I gave them about 2 hours to get accustomed each other, but every time the mother got closer to Rachael, Rachael gave alarming sound and scuttled onto my lap. Rachael was so scared that she started to pluck her hair off of her. I do not think they are compatible so that I will return the mother to the humane society tomorrow morning... I feel really sad.
 
scozy said:
She happened to be a biological mother of my guinea pig, Rachael.
I gave them about 2 hours to get accustomed each other
Click to expand...

A or The Biological mother? And how did they know?
2 hours! It took me two weeks to get Harry in with my two girls. Keep trying for shorter periods is my opinion.
 
The biological mother, becasue the stuff at the humane society looked up the file and told me that Rachael is the daughter of the mother. I do not think they remember it.

Okay I will not give up then. The mother's name is now Marla. Thanks.
 
OK, mine are boars, and bonding sows is supposed to be quicker, but this is what we did:
For the first week, they were in enclosures next to each other so they could see, hear and smell each other, but no contact
The second week they had an hour together on a lap every evening
Only after that did we start putting them together on neutral territory
They are now very good friends
 
totally agree keep letting them have floor time together its only that they need to find their pecking order and who is boss pig as i call them, once thats sorted they will be happy together, it takes time to get pigs to bond in some cases but in others they just click, dont give up just be watchful,
 
You definitely need to give them more time. Loads of patience needed. Little and often I'd suggest.
 
Thank you everybody. I will put their cages side by side for a week, then start giving a lap time together. I will wait to give them a floor time until then.

Small steps, right?
 
Small steps!

I always think how if someone just moved into my house, I may not be to happy about it and it would take me a bit of time to get used to it! There are lots of hints and tips on this website Cavy Spirit which may help you with your introductions.

Good Luck & Welcome to the forum!
 
It can actually be emotionally hard on them which can cause a physical depression. They're herd animals and even though you may spoil her, when she's in the cage she needs someone to snuggle with, play with, groom, be with, etc. There are some guinea pigs that just don't get on with any other guinea pig (for example a guinea pig here at the rescue was exposed to a female in heat and treats every single guinea pig- female or not- like her personal sex toy and is a bully). If a guinea pig can be with another one, I would very strongly recommend it.

Kimmie
 
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Hi, they are living in a same cage now. Occasionally I see them growling and chasing each other but other than these they are fine!

Thank you!
 
Success! Well done. Lovely guineas and their home looks good too. It's great to watch 2 guineas enjoying living together. They may still be sorting out the pecking order a bit, someone's got to be boss I suppose!
 
its not bad for them but its definetely better to have more than one

however, do not have 2 brothers and a female as the brothers will fight over her
 
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