Help To Make Bonding A Success

[amber horner]

Hi all I have 4 piggies Dave and Derek who are 2 1/2 yrs and last Friday I brought home potch and chinno who are 3 months old. Dave is the dominant one out of him and Derek Ive read all the advice on here about bonding my piggies I'm just wondering how long do I leave it before I start the bonding process? I'm going do it on my kitchen floor and I've brought everything new for their pen if the bond successfully. Dave and Derek have wondered up to the new piggies cage and they have all sniffed each other through the bars Dave rumbled strutted a tiny bit but I let them carry on sniffing etc shall I start the bonding process this week or leave it a while x

 

[Wiebke]

Hi all I have 4 piggies Dave and Derek who are 2 1/2 yrs and last Friday I brought home potch and chinno who are 3 months old. Dave is the dominant one out of him and Derek Ive read all the advice on here about bonding my piggies I'm just wondering how long do I leave it before I start the bonding process? I'm going do it on my kitchen floor and I've brought everything new for their pen if the bond successfully. Dave and Derek have wondered up to the new piggies cage and they have all sniffed each other through the bars Dave rumbled strutted a tiny bit but I let them carry on sniffing etc shall I start the bonding process this week or leave it a while x

Hi! Do I understand correctly that they are all boars? Please be aware that boar quartets are about as unstable as they come. I know of only one stable boar quartet that does not either contain disabled/carer piggies (which have different dynamics) or old age pensioner groups whose testosterone has fizzled out - and that in over 8 years experience on several guinea pig forums! The fall-out rate of trios with two youngsters is about 90%, in quartets it is 99.5%.

If you try, you are most likely to end up with one bonded pair and two singlesin my long term experience, but we have also had cases where members have ended up with four single boars where none would go back with any of the others.

Please keep boars in pairs or in groups of over 10 boars with with at least 1 square metre per boars. Anything in between is more likely to fail than not, and in some cases MOST likely to fail.

 

[amber horner]

Thank you for your advice yes all four piggies are boars looks like I'm getting another pen then which is fine do you think I can try bonding them or should I not try and just have them in separate pens would they be OK in pens next to each other x

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you for your advice yes all four piggies are boars looks like I'm getting another pen then which is fine do you think I can try bonding them or should I not try and just have them in separate pens would they be OK in pens next to each other x

Please do not try - you can very easily end up with bonded pairs falling out over dominance. The boy pairs are OK in adjoining but separate pens.

It's simply not worth the risk, as tempting as a boar group is!

 

[amber horner]

Thank you I won't try to bond them I'll get another pen for the new piggies its not a problem thank you so much for your advice x