My female guinea pig is rumble strutting and scaring my other female guinea pig.

Mylittlespices

Mylittlespices

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This is my first time owning guinea pigs, and i just got 2 female guinea pigs about a few months ago they have been best friends until just recently. Ginger a female guinea pig about 4 or 5 months old has been rumblestrutting and occasionally humping my other female guinea pig cinnamon. This happened a week ago but went away though i have noticed a change in cinnamon's behavior lately. She sometimes whines when ginger gets close to her and is staying in the hideys a lot more. I'm working on getting them a bigger cage as it is only 30in by 18in. Is there anything i should do in the mean time.
 
Hi and :wel: to the Forum.

How old are your piggies? It sounds like Ginger is probably having a strong season. Betsy used to hump all the time (it was X rated viewing :lol!:) when she was in season and was really grumpy. Thankfully this is getting less now she is getting older.

Cage size will probably have something to do with it as well. Your cage is far too small. My hospital cage for 1 piggy to go in occasionally and not for long in is a lot larger than that. Read here all about Cages And Hutch Guide it will give you all you need to know about minimum sizes for cages.

Unfortunately small cages are still being sold to new owners by shops and the owners think that the cage is large enough. It's not your fault that you were sold a cage that you thought was large enough so don't blame yourself.

Do your piggies have free roaming time? This may also help as they will be able to run off some of their excess energy. If you don't want to give them free roaming time you could get a collapsible run from amazon. I have one like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/BUNNY-BUSI...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VR52HYQ6E6F3HJW910AH and I can put it up and down in less than a minute and store it away in a cupboard as it folds up quite small. It can be any shape you want. I pop old blanket underneath it to stop the carpet from getting wee'd on.
 
I am very confused what does a strong season mean ive heard of guinea pigs in heat but have no idea what it means.
 
RainbowPanda688 said:
This is my first time owning guinea pigs, and i just got 2 female guinea pigs about a few months ago they have been best friends until just recently. Ginger a female guinea pig about 4 or 5 months old has been rumblestrutting and occasionally humping my other female guinea pig cinnamon. This happened a week ago but went away though i have noticed a change in cinnamon's behavior lately. She sometimes whines when ginger gets close to her and is staying in the hideys a lot more. I'm working on getting them a bigger cage as it is only 30in by 18in. Is there anything i should do in the mean time.
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Hi and welcome

It is very likely that your sow is experiencing a strong season. Things should die down again in a day or two.

Please take the time to read these guides here to understand what is happening:
Sow Behaviour
When Sows Experience A Strong Season (videos)
Bonding: Illustrated Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics

Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides
 
My guinea pigs are called Ginger and Cinnamon to! Cinnamon does this all the time and I was wondering the same thing! I always thought it was a dominance thing until I saw her trying to hump Ginger haha
 
A larger cage should definitely help as it will offer your girls a bit more space to get away from each other.
Plus I find distraction can be a good technique too.
When Lucy is in season and Harry is driving her crazy I add new toys (toilet rolls stuffed with hay, cardboard boxes with multiple doorways, etc) and throw lots of different types of hay into different places in their cage. I also scatter special treats like small amounts of dried forage (dandelions, nettles, etc) in their hay, which helps keep them busy for a while.
It doesn't solve the problem entirely, but it does help to calm everyone down and give Lucy a break.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about this behaviour, but as others have said, a bigger cage should help the situation, try to ensure hideys have two exits so that a piggy isn't trapped by the other..

I experienced similar behaviour to your explanation with little Willow, she obviously was having a very strong season and was chasing my OAP Honey around the cage... it died down the following day.

Hope you get things sorted :)
 
Thx everyone, ginger calmed down about a day later and i finally set up another large cage and attached a ramp so they can go in and out either cage, they are so close to going all the way into the new cage. They now have a ton of room to run around and hang out it will just take a few days before they get used to the new cage and ramp.
 
RainbowPanda688 said:
Thx everyone, ginger calmed down about a day later and i finally set up another large cage and attached a ramp so they can go in and out either cage, they are so close to going all the way into the new cage. They now have a ton of room to run around and hang out it will just take a few days before they get used to the new cage and ramp.
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Pleased to here you've sorted their housing space out! More than likely they just needed this own space, as in the previous set up they may aswell been sitting on top of one another. Hopefully things continue to improve with the dominance behaviour
 
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