help! guinea pigs hate eachother

[sundaepig]

i used to have two girls, butterscotch and cashew. cashew was always the shy, submissive one of the two. unfortunately butterscotch passed away a few months ago and my city only seemed to have pairs up for adoption and i didnt have a big enough space for 3. well that changed and i have a beautiful custom wood hutch that can fit 3! i adopted two girls from the same woman who made my hutch, and i was excited for cashew to have some friends again. the first week i kept them in their seperate cages but the same room to get used to eachothers scents and also for the new girls (peaches and cream) to aclimate to their new surroundings. after a week of that i moved their cages next to eachother so they can say hello in a safe place. unfortunately i dont know what happened next as i wasnt there, but my room mate said cashew somehow got into peaches and creams cage while she was having floor time and she attacked and bit peaches until she bled! a week later i gave them all a bath at seperate times mostly because theyre all long hair and needed it and partially because i wanted them to all smell the same. then for floor time i seperated the floor space (neutral) with a mesh and they just kept rumbling at eachother. after about another week i tried to introduce them all again in a new clean environment (outside) and cashew attacked peaches AGAIN and took out a tuft of fur. and now cream has also started to attack cashew. i dont think its a dominance thing, and cashew is 6 while the other two are 2. i dont know what to do! cashew is miserable. shes losing weight. i have to handle her before the other girls since shell rumble and nip me if i smell like the other two. and her wheeks scare the other two! its been a month total and i see no signs of improvement. should i move cashews cage to a different room for a few weeks so they can forget about eachother? i feel ive done everything right. i hand feed them all the same thing at the same time so they dont get jealous, i always had food and water sources available in a neautral meeting... i think the first incident may have ruined their chances forever

 

[amy104]

Bonding Guinea Pigs is as much about the indivual characters of the individuals as any other factor. Sadly if one piggy has been seriously injured and is stressed and losing weight I would abort all plans of an intro and get her checked by a vet ASAP.

 

[Wiebke]

i used to have two girls, butterscotch and cashew. cashew was always the shy, submissive one of the two. unfortunately butterscotch passed away a few months ago and my city only seemed to have pairs up for adoption and i didnt have a big enough space for 3. well that changed and i have a beautiful custom wood hutch that can fit 3! i adopted two girls from the same woman who made my hutch, and i was excited for cashew to have some friends again. the first week i kept them in their seperate cages but the same room to get used to eachothers scents and also for the new girls (peaches and cream) to aclimate to their new surroundings. after a week of that i moved their cages next to eachother so they can say hello in a safe place. unfortunately i dont know what happened next as i wasnt there, but my room mate said cashew somehow got into peaches and creams cage while she was having floor time and she attacked and bit peaches until she bled! a week later i gave them all a bath at seperate times mostly because theyre all long hair and needed it and partially because i wanted them to all smell the same. then for floor time i seperated the floor space (neutral) with a mesh and they just kept rumbling at eachother. after about another week i tried to introduce them all again in a new clean environment (outside) and cashew attacked peaches AGAIN and took out a tuft of fur. and now cream has also started to attack cashew. i dont think its a dominance thing, and cashew is 6 while the other two are 2. i dont know what to do! cashew is miserable. shes losing weight. i have to handle her before the other girls since shell rumble and nip me if i smell like the other two. and her wheeks scare the other two! its been a month total and i see no signs of improvement. should i move cashews cage to a different room for a few weeks so they can forget about eachother? i feel ive done everything right. i hand feed them all the same thing at the same time so they dont get jealous, i always had food and water sources available in a neautral meeting... i think the first incident may have ruined their chances forever

Hi and welcome

Please be aware that by far not all piggies will always gel; especially not two dominant group/pair leaders; a group can consist of a group of just one member in the case of single adults and even some teenagers if they have a defined territory that is theirs.

Please also be aware that the scent swapping scheme can make piggies feel on edge as their territory as been intruded on by an outsider. It is not by any means a fail-safe bonding measure and can actually have the opposite effect to the one you are intending. It is one of those breeder tips that is sadly on the questionable side; it has never worked for me when I tried it and has in fact rather contributed to a bonding fail. When scent 'invaded' piggies get the opportunity to get at the perceived intruder, then they will do so quite forcefully unfortunately.

When the chips are down, there is not one magic trick in the world to make piggies like each other. In the end it all comes down to whether they want to get on and can solve the tricky leader issue. Please just let piggies live next to each other to get to know each other and hopefully make friends through the bars but do not go any further.

Sadly for you, once sows have decided that another piggy is not part of their group, they will never accept them, not in the next few years or for the remainder of their lives. Once their have full-on bloody bites, there is no way back for piggies.

Please either keep the girls in their separate hutches well apart from now on or return the new piggies to their owner. But this is never going to work, nor is Cashew likely to accept another piggy all that soon after this episode.

Please only ever date her on neutral ground (ideally at one of our recommeded rescues that offer this service under expert supervision) where she is not put on the defensive with a hostile territory takeover at stake.
Recommended Guinea Pig Rescues

 

[sundaepig]

Do you feel its cashew feeling threatened or the new girls being overwhelemed? regardless i dont want to try introducing them again, not after seeing the fighting. thank you so much, i think i might move cashew to my bedroom so she has her own private room. I'm also seeing my vet today to check on her weight. peaches has gone back into her shell and i hope this didnt ruin our relationship forever! is it harder to bond a sibling pair to one not related?

 

[Wiebke]

Do you feel its cashew feeling threatened or the new girls being overwhelemed? regardless i dont want to try introducing them again, not after seeing the fighting. thank you so much, i think i might move cashew to my bedroom so she has her own private room. I'm also seeing my vet today to check on her weight. peaches has gone back into her shell and i hope this didnt ruin our relationship forever! is it harder to bond a sibling pair to one not related?

I would think that there is some of both.

It is less a question of being related but how closely bonded your pairs are. Some are very happy as they are and do not want any more company, thank you. I have got a couple of them and respect that. One is a sister pair and the other is an unrelated pair, so no bias there.

 

[sundaepig]

really good to know! I'm more than happy having two seperate enclosures, it just makes me sad for my one thats lonely. thank you for your help