Neutered Boar Started Bullying A Sow

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Florrieberry

Florrieberry

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Hi, we have one neutered boar with 6 sows. One of the sows and the boar were from the same rescue, adopted a few weeks apart. Harvey seemed to recognise Daisy and they have always got on fine as do the rest of the herd. They live indoors in a large 3 floor C&C cage ,and come out into a pen at night for about 2 hours. Recently Harvey has been picking on Daisy, especially in the pen. He goes out of his way to approach her, sneakily at times and either pecks her and chases her to peck again, or stands right next to her motionless d for a few seconds then pecks her. Any ideas?
Is there anything we can do? It would be difficult running another cage and a shame to split the herd but we can't leave Daisy being bullied
They are aged approx 2-3 years.
Thanks
 
Leave be for the moment; it is not yet outright bullying.
 
Florrieberry said:
How so ? How do you differentiate? How long would you leave it for?
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At the moment, it looks like he is just throwing his weight around.
Bullying starts when dominance behaviour is so incessant that a guinea is starting to lose weight or is looking very depressed/withdrawn.
 
Ah well, she is losing a little weight. At first we thought it was just because we had cut down on the pellets a little (on vets advice) but the others have stabilised weight and she lost a bit more last week, (weigh weekly) so keeping an eye on that.
 
Florrieberry said:
Ah well, she is losing a little weight. At first we thought it was just because we had cut down on the pellets a little (on vets advice) but the others have stabilised weight and she lost a bit more last week, (weigh weekly) so keeping an eye on that.
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If she continues to lose weight in combination with being pushed around, then you may want to consider splitting the herd. It is always a gut wrenching decision; I have been there with piggies of mine. :(
 
Wiebke said:
If she continues to lose weight in combination with being pushed around, then you may want to consider splitting the herd. It is always a gut wrenching decision; I have been there with piggies of mine. :(
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It would be a shame as they have always gotten on so well and we built them a lovely big cage but don't have space (or time) for two cages this size so somebody would be downgrading
I don't understand why things would just suddenly change? Is not like they are either teenagers or old & demented!
 
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