Split up boars- trying to get to each other… floor/garden time?

Lymaine

Lymaine

Junior Guinea Pig
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So I have two 9 month old boars who I’ve had to split up because they suddenly started to fight and I found wounds on both. Currently we have one in the c&c and the other in your typical shop bought size cage while we wait for our second c&c to arrive.
The thing is.. the one in the c&c has started biting the grids and the one in the small cage is looking a bit sad (could be because he’s in the small cage?). I put them near each other through the c&c grid and there was interest. At the moment they can smell each other but not see each other. I know they can’t live together and I’m hoping behaviours will improve when I get the second c&c and they are closer and can see each other but what can I do to make this easier on them in the meantime?

Also.. would they be able to have floor/garden time together? Thinking as we’d be there to chuck a blanket on them and separate if things got grumpy.. or is that too risky? Would it confuse them? Could they have sofa cuddle time semi together.. one with a person each and not able to bite each other?

I’m so confused because I’ve never had to split up a pair before and when they started to fight I separated them for the day while I was in work then reintroduced in a bonding situation that evening.. it went really well or so I thought until the next morning they fought again so I had to split again. They’ve been separate since.

Thanks in advance ❤️
 
I’m sorry to hear this.

As they have had a fight and do need permanent separation, you cannot allow them to to have floor or garden run time together. Playdates aren’t how piggies function and being allowed to be together for play time will be seen as a full on bonding session which will never be seen through to conclusion as they will need to be separated every time to go back to their own cages. This will cause them stress and potentially risks further fights occurring if you allow them to have any physical contact.

Dont forget, some behaviours in separated piggies are not necessarily positive and because they want to be together - they can be territory marking exercises.

Why can they not see each other at present? Separated piggies do need to be side by side

Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
 
:agr: I’m sorry you’ve had to separate them, but now that they are separated they need to remain that way permanently. If you allow them to share the same floor space they would end up fighting as there would be a need to re establish dominance each time they were together. It’s a shame, but that is how it is. Please don’t mistake interest through the bars as an indication of a desire to be reintroduced. Those behaviours can be confusing but it’s unlikely that reintroducing them would work once things had got to the stage of physical injury.
 
Ok thank you both I will not let them have floor or garden time together… would they be able to have floor and garden time together but separated by a run? So they can see each other but not fight. Also would it be ok if say I had one on my lap and my husband had one on his lap on the same sofa but they didn’t come into contact?
 
Lymaine said:
Ok thank you both I will not let them have floor or garden time together… would they be able to have floor and garden time together but separated by a run? So they can see each other but not fight. Also would it be ok if say I had one on my lap and my husband had one on his lap on the same sofa but they didn’t come into contact?
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A divided run is fine. Unless they are trying to get at each other through the divide, then you have to decide whether to put up a solid divider so that they can’t see or get to each other. I wouldn’t have them both out for lap time at the same time - they could bolt or leap if they see the other.
 
Lymaine said:
Ok thank you both I will not let them have floor or garden time together… would they be able to have floor and garden time together but separated by a run? So they can see each other but not fight. Also would it be ok if say I had one on my lap and my husband had one on his lap on the same sofa but they didn’t come into contact?
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Hi

They can live and exercise in adjoining/divided cages and become a 'can't live together but can't live apart' bonded pair of boars where each has their own patch but still has full interaction (scent, body language AND vocal communication) for mutual stimulation through the bars.

But what you are currently seeing is actually not the desire to be friends together (it never is after a fight) but the desire to mark their own territory and to chase the other one off. Most people are not aware that guinea pigs have territorial behaviours and persistently misinterpret them.
You can learn more about territorial behaviours and how to spot them in the respective entry in our very helpful A-Z Behaviours guide: A - Z of Guinea Pig Behaviours
 
Lymaine said:
Not sure what I’d do without this forum in all honesty 😊 ❤️❤️❤️
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Muddle through it all yourself and learn from your mistakes, like I had to over the last half century of piggy ownership. You generally learn more from doing it wrong but it can come at a high price occasionally - but it gives you deeper insights into how things work and connect in ways that are not obvious when you just follow the guidelines. ;)

But we are here to help and we work hard to provide a friendly and an knowledgeable safe space. Between our own long term owner experience and our 15 years of running this forum with tens of thousands of enquiries we do have quite a formidable resource available to us.

This practical experience has also gone into our guides, which contain all the practical little tips and in-depth information that can trip up an owner without experience in that particular area. We just can't repeat everything in that detail in every post and still have piggies and a life of our own outside our paying paying job and family otherwise. :)
 
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