Some Advice About My Two Piggies!

[Yorisou]

Hello all, my first post here.
So I have Lymo, the older piggy, and Hershy the new younger piggy.

We decided to get our little fluff ball lymo a new friend to keep him company.
We have had hershy for a week now and the first initial meeting went really well, with just the usual dominance behaviour of humping and rumble strutting ect, but no aggressive behaviour. They are currently in a 2x4 cage with two of everything. It began to look as if they were going to be good pals, hershy was submitting and lymo took the dominance role as expected. But as the days progressed lymo started to become a bit of a bully, chasing him constantly and teeth chattering, hershy was still able to eat and drink fine so we decided to leave it in a hope it would settle. Until yesterday, where it started to get a little more hostile, with some nipping and lunging going on, and unfortunately today I heard a loud squeak and came in to find hershy in the corner with a bite on his nose ( blood was drawn) but thankfully it wasn't serious. I gave him a better inspection and checked for any other marks and found a small scab on his side, and can only assume it was another nip. For now I have decided to divide the cage up into two, which i know is too small but it will only be for one evening as I have ordered some C&C squares and correx ( we planned on expanding the current cage and adding a loft)

I have now decided that I will keep them housed separate and make a c&c stacked cage, my main concern is, is this going to make them both lonely? I know they will be able to sense each other but they wont be able to see each other, apart from floor time in a run in the living room. Is that enough interaction for them both? Whenever they are out of the cage they act like good friends, they munch their veg together, run around together and squeak whenever they can't see each other when they are running around the living room! But I feel as if i can't risk them being in the same cage, I'm on edge now incase any fights break out!

This is what I'm planning on building for them https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i9HycLUmZ6g/maxresdefault.jpg

I hope a few weeks of them living separate and floor time will calm things down so i can eventually build what i planned for them to live together, but i've read that once blood is drawn its unlikely they will ever live together. Is this true?

 

[Scooby& Shaggy]

Hey
so when you split them up and then re-introduce them they will do the dominance dance every time, so it may be best to give them a break for a night and then put them together again. (someone else may offer better advice, I am just going of what I have read). But i believe it is not adviced to keep splitting and re-introducing them. Once or twice after a big fight is undestanable. but contstantly may do more harm than good.

I am currently having a similar problem with scooby and shaggy but rather than divide them I am going to give them more space and see how they get on, even though they already have alot of space, i think more space can only be a good thing, and that way they are still together but have enough room to be apart from each other when needed.

So I am giving scooby and shaggy the full run and moving Elvis and drogon elsewhere.

 

[Yorisou]

Hey
so when you split them up and then re-introduce them they will do the dominance dance every time, so it may be best to give them a break for a night and then put them together again. (someone else may offer better advice, I am just going of what I have read). But i believe it is not adviced to keep splitting and re-introducing them. Once or twice after a big fight is undestanable. but contstantly may do more harm than good.

I am currently having a similar problem with scooby and shaggy but rather than divide them I am going to give them more space and see how they get on, even though they already have alot of space, i think more space can only be a good thing, and that way they are still together but have enough room to be apart from each other when needed.

So I am giving scooby and shaggy the full run and moving Elvis and drogon elsewhere.

Thanks for the advice, yeah i would rather not keep splitting them up really as i know this can stress them out and make it worse! Maybe more space will help, I was thinking instead of making two separate cages to stack I could possibly make the cage with a ramp leading up to the top level? that way they still have plenty of space to get away from each other but they aren't completely separated.

 

[Scooby& Shaggy]

Hope it works out for you. Like I say my boars who are at 6 month mark are constantly fighting at the minute so just given them alot more too and they seem abit happier.

 

[pig in the city]

More space and a new environment will definitely help. You could try reintroducing them when you have the new cage, as this will be neutral territory. The previous cage was very small and was the likely cause of the fall out

 

[Yorisou]

More space and a new environment will definitely help. You could try reintroducing them when you have the new cage, as this will be neutral territory. The previous cage was very small and was the likely cause of the fall out

Ah I see thank you! I thought a 4x2 was the recommended size for two guinea pigs?

 

[pig in the city]

Ah I see thank you! I thought a 4x2 was the recommended size for two guinea pigs?

It is the minimum sized cage for 2 sows or a boar/sow pair (bigger is better!). Two boars need minimum 5 feet by 2 feet. Your proposed new cage looks fantastic

 

[Yorisou]

It is the minimum sized cage for 2 sows or a boar/sow pair (bigger is better!). Two boars need minimum 5 feet by 2 feet. Your proposed new cage looks fantastic

Thank you! I can't take wait to get it built for them, I'm sure all that extra room will really make a difference