Male Guinea Pig Dominance Problem

[bob2sea]

One of our female Guinea Pigs had a boy baby (Jack) who we seperated from his mum at about 5 weeks old. He was living on his own for about a week until we got him a mate (Gavin) of around similar age, from a pet shop. At first Jack was a bit strange, sniffing, mounting, the usual, but after a couple of days, he was fine and now the pair sleep side by side.

Gavin got a cold recently and so we had to keep taking him out of his cage to give him his medicine and we noticed that Jack would squeak to say that he was missing him. However, more recently, whenever Gavin was put back into the cage, Jack would start acting strange by walking around low to the ground and making a low repetitive noise. He would prowl around, sniff Gavin, then he would be ok again.

In the last few days though it seems to have got worse. Today when cleaning out their cage, the pair of them were in the run and Jack was wondering around constantly doing this noise. He then started sniffing and mounting Gavin and has even now started to urinate on his back!

Gavin doesnt seem to be phased by it at all, but Jack is being a right pain and constantly humping, walking around and urinating on him.

Any idea what's going on? I'm guessing its a dominance thing but as they are both are around 12 weeks old but have lived together for about 6 weeks without any previous problems? grrrr

 

[kimberlie]

This is completely normal dominance behaviour between males as the age they are at as well.

Jack is trying to show who is boss, and once this has been sorted then it will stop.
The exact same thing happened with 2 of my boys, one kept humping and making noises, while the other just let him get on with it.

As long as they are not fighting and no blood is drawn i would leave them to it.

 

[Wiebke]

Completely normal boy behaviour.

Have a look at this link:
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28949

 

[ollie]

they 'll sort out who's boss then things will calm down

 

[Sherbie]

Yep, I've had this over and over again with my boys. I took Sherbie out the other day and his fur was coverd in...well.. lets just call it boar juice shall we? lol

I guess Fudge decided that Sherbie needed showing whos boss, it took forever to get it out though! Thankfully they are a pair of abbys so the spiky look didn't seem to out of place, lol.

Like everyone says, as long as there is no blood drawn or distress being caused then its best to let them work it out