Please help with a guinea pig bite.

[petitflamingo]

This is similar to recent threads that have been posted but I thought I would post a new one because the scenario is a little different.

We have one guinea pig which we've had over a year and we have another one (both boars) which is around 5 months old.

There have been the odd signs of dominance here and there (teeth chattering, humping etc.) but recently it seems to have taken a turn for the worse and tonight we had to separate them.

We heard a yelping sound and rushed over to check them both as my boyfriend said he thought he saw one bite the other.

Upon checking we saw that the elder one has an unmistakable laceration to his rear. It looks quite sore but he is still moving around as normal. I plan to ring a vets tomorrow and to get him seen as soon as possible. In the mean time does anyone have any ideas on what I can do? I am worried the bite might get infected due to where it is, is there anything I should do to prevent this?

Thanks for your help.

 

[PAMELAKT]

Do you have any germaline? This will stop infection + heal any pain a bit.

What a shame so sorry to read that

 

[petitflamingo]

We have kept them separate the past couple of days and will ensure we put some germaline on the wound. The wound is minor but we're glad that we caught on to it as soon as it happened - if we'd been in work while it happened it could have been worse.

They obviously don't like being separate but are still next to each other - if one is out of sight then one begins calling, which is impossible to sleep through! :{

They're okay next to each other's cages now, occasionally having a nibble at the bar (should we try lemon juice on the bar to stop this?), and we plan to reintroduce them bit by bit with some floor and lap time together. We tried reintroducing them yesterday but again one went to nibble the other's rear - really have no idea why he's doing that!

It seems that the adolescent is obsessed with displaying dominance whereas the other is completely motivated by his next meal. Really hoping the adolescent calms down after a while so he doesn't feel the need to mount the other hundreds of times a day.

 

[Sodapops]

We have kept them separate the past couple of days and will ensure we put some germaline on the wound. The wound is minor but we're glad that we caught on to it as soon as it happened - if we'd been in work while it happened it could have been worse.

They obviously don't like being separate but are still next to each other - if one is out of sight then one begins calling, which is impossible to sleep through! :{

They're okay next to each other's cages now, occasionally having a nibble at the bar (should we try lemon juice on the bar to stop this?), and we plan to reintroduce them bit by bit with some floor and lap time together. We tried reintroducing them yesterday but again one went to nibble the other's rear - really have no idea why he's doing that!

It seems that the adolescent is obsessed with displaying dominance whereas the other is completely motivated by his next meal. Really hoping the adolescent calms down after a while so he doesn't feel the need to mount the other hundreds of times a day.

The best thing for cleaning a wound is a simple saline solution - cool boiled water with a pinch of salt in it - i would be very wary of using human antiseptic creams on a guinea pig unless it was advised so by a vet

Ive never heard of the lemon juice to stop bar biting - i did hear of vaseline being used and i tried this myself - it stopped it for about a day and then once the vaseline had dried/wore off they would do it again. My lot get really excited when it concerns food (such as fresh grass or veg time) and so go crazy biting the bars - they do this to get us to HURRY UP!

Have you read the boar behaviour threads?

http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28949

http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76162

I recently had to separate two of my boys - very sad situation but once blood is drawn it's very unlikely they will ever rebond. They can live quite happily next door to one another if you have room - have you considered the possibility of taking each of your boys boar dating so they can find themselves a new friend?

 

[PAMELAKT]

I was advised germaline by a vet for my boys previously, and currently use it on Billy's ear as he has a little cut he came to me with - but yes go for whatever is the best X hope it gets better soon! What a nightmare ;( xx