My Guinea Pigs won’t stop arguing/fighting

[Golins_guinea_pigs]

Hi! I have 2 boars in a 6 by 2 cage. They are around one 9-12 months old but they won’t stop showing dominance to each other. At first my Abyssinian guinea pig was the dominant one but now, 2 to 3 months later, my American guinea pig has taken over the dominance and kicking the other one out of any space he wants to go to. I do have hides, one you go up ramp, but there’s a hammock connected to it under. The other one is an another hide. They fight who gets what and it gets me worried. There is no blood and they don’t bite each other. What should I do?

 

[Piggies&buns]

It’s important with boars that you have two of everything so they don’t need to share. If a particular hide is causing an issue then remove it and replace it with something the same as you already have.
Make sure all hides have two doors.

The dominant will have the pick of everything first, but if there is a power struggle between them then their bond may be dysfunctional.
You need to establish whether it is dominance or whether it has tipped over into a dysfunctional bond.

For dominance, you don’t do anything.

Please read this guide as it explains everything more fully

Bonds In Trouble

The best thing, if you are concerned that it is more than dominance then you can carry out a temporary separation. Put in some more grids and split the cage in half for a few days. This will allow the pigs to calm down.

After a few days, remove both of the boys from the cage and put them on a neutral territory space and reunite them. Do not just remove the divider from the cage and allow each piggy to wander into the other half of the cage - doing that will be seen as a territory invasion.
When you reunite them on neutral territory, that will allow them to decide if they want to be together. If they are calm when reuniting them and for a few hours after (you will still see mild dominance), then they will are likely to go back together without issue and you can then clean out their main cage and move them back to it together.
If they are tense and/or fight or behaviours are concerning, then that is the answer that they do not want to be together. In that case, their separation would need to be permanent and you should put them back in the main cage leaving the dividers in place. A 2x3 space is minimum for a single piggy.

This is something you can’t do a lot though - use it once to decide if they want to be together

 

[Julie M]

Is your cage all on the one level? Boars tend to do best in single level cages. . Boars can be little rascals at times.
They are at an age for a hormone spike. One way I've found helps is if you have 2 of everything so they can have their own stuff. Boars also seem to love chewing things up so I provide cardboard boxes with at least 2 doors cut in for them to run through and chew. I provide large piles of hay and sometimes sprinkle on dried forages for them to forage through. I also sometimes roll up a ball of paper (dye free) and hide some nuggets/forage through it. Basically as many distractions you can provide them with the better. When cleaning the cage if they are a really dominant pair I would keep some of the dirty bedding and put that back in so there's a familiar scent. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[fluffysal]

When you clean the cage only do half at a time so they don't have to go mad scent marking which brings on another round of dominance behaviours. If you use fleece and have a cage sized one, rub the used one over the new and consider getting some pee pads. I try to leave "dirty " pee pads in when I put in clean fleece
If you use disposable bedding, mix some of the used in the top layer of the new.
Boars like things "smelly"