Indroducing Older Lone Piggy To 2 Younger Ones

[Pippa]

I've recently adopted 3 guinea pigs altogether.
One is a lone female who's about 2-3 years old and very timid. When I got her, her old owners hadn't given her enough love and she had some problems with her feet. She's on the mend and once she's recovered I'm hopeing to introduce her to my other two.
The other two I adopted are over 1 yrs old females and came as a pair and get on very well. They where from a different owner so they arrived happy, healthy, curious and chatty! And they continue to be!
I was wondering if it would be a good idea to introduce them? The older pig has never had any other piggy company and she's a very shy girl but I can't help worrying that she's lonley. The other two are very lively and I would probely keep her in her own cage for the most part.
Would it be a good idea to let them have a supervised play in the pen together, and how should I go about it? I don't want the poor girl to get overwhelmed by two excitable piggys!

Any suggestions please?

 

[Bekki]

I personally would not think of bonding until the older ladies feet were healed :-) In general introducing the pigs is a good idea once they've been quarantined and you know they dont have mites/fungal/lice etc. Guinea pigs are social animals and the lone sow will benefit from being with other piggies. Re: Bonding, the general idea is that you introduce them in a neutral area so they dont have "territories" there to fight over, this can be a pen in a room you dont let them in for example, and once they seem happy you can put them in their permanent cage (which needs to be thoroughly scrubbed before hand to make sure it smells "new" to the pigs) there are threads regarding bonding in the stickies at the top of this section I think :-)

 

[Wiebke]

Please give your single girl two weeks of quarantine and time to recover. Then move her cage next to the other girls, so they can get to know each other through the bars for at least a few days to get used to each other. It pays taking your time at that stage, as piggies that have not had company can be very timid/fear-aggressive when they come face to face with other guinea pigs - especially as soon as there are not bars in the way!.

We recommend staging any intros on neutral ground without any hideys. Separate if there are signs of major agression/hostility.
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/faq-introducing-and-reintroducing-guinea-pigs.38562/
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/dominance-behaviours-in-guinea-pigs.28949/

 

[Pippa]

Thank you very much both for the advise and links i hope when the time comes they will get one well!
I don't plan on anything until the older girl is 100% better. Hopefully by then she'll have more energy in her to be introduced to some new friends!
Thanks!

 

[madguinealady]

I swapped bedding between cages so they could get used to each others smell and when I put the babies in, rubbed them with the hay from the litter box so they smelted the same

 

[Pippa]

Good idea. I'll make sure I'll do it when the old girls recovered to minimise contamination (if there's any! Awaiting vets advice atm )
Thank you!