How To Help Two Young Sows Bond Slowly And Correctly?

[Caileigh.Carothers]

Hi all! I'm a new guinea pig owner and very new to this forum!

A week ago I got a 4 month old tri color slow named Anakin, Annie for short, who was originally purchased from a breeder and kept by herself. She lets me pet her no problem and we seem to be bonding fairly well for only having her for a week.

I found a very young sow (4 weeks old) that was being re-homed after an "accidental" (so they claimed) breeding and after some advice from some other guinea pig owners I decided to get her. The day I brought her home, I put both sows into a neutral area, clean of either piggies scent, along with some hay and veggies, hoping they would easily bond since the new piggy was so young. In the neutral zone they did bond fairly easily, or so I thought. I introduced the little piggy into a freshly cleaned (no scent) cage with the older sow and the older sow was showing typical dominance behavior (nudging and then running off, chirping, purring etc.). The tiny baby is very submissive and doesn't protest the older sows displays of dominance, so I figured everything would be alright. After leaving them in there for about 10 minutes the older sow started nudging and "running over" the younger one pretty frequently and after hearing the baby cry out like she was in pain, I removed her from the cage. They have had 2 meetings since in neutral areas and have gotten along much better since then.

My question is.... how will I know when it's safe to put them in the same cage? I have a brand new C & C cage that neither of them have been put in before and would like to put them in there together at the same time....

How do I know when it will be safe to put them in there together?

 

[Wiebke]

Nothing ontowards has actually happened; the short acceptance phase has gone smoothly and then you panicked at the beginning of the dominance phase. What you hear from the baby is submission screaming, not pain pain screaming; it means "Don't be nasty to me!" - and it is usually very effective! You are bound to hear quite a bit of it during the dominance phase, in which just the shape of the relationship is decided, not how good friends they will become over time.

It is safe to put them together again; just remove any hideys with only one exit during the dominance phase, which usually lasts a few days. make sure that you have at least two hideys (a tea towel begged to the grids will do the trick during the initial stage) and two food bowls at least one body length apart, so the dominant girl can't push the little one off; which is a normal part of dominance. Please don't separate unless there are fights or the little one is losing weight (bullying). Otherwise, you have to sit it out. If I were you, I wouldn't be too worried. Your girls sound very par for the course.
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/sow-behaviour.38561/
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/dominance-behaviours-in-guinea-pigs.28949/

 

[piggyfan]

The noise the younger sow made was just her being submissive. This is normal. They sounded like they were establishing the hieracy and just sorting things out. It is a horrible noise though so I can understand why it upset you. I would introduce them again just like you did before.