Teeth chattering & head rearing

[pinkandsilversparkles]

Hi, my 3 month old pair of boys are becoming increasingly aggressive with each other. It only seems to happen when they are out of their cage having play time in in the living room etc, but they've started teeth chattering at each other while raising their heads and bearing their teeth. A couple of times they have come very close to attacking each other before I've stopped them. Does anyone have any advice? I'm so upset at the thought of separating them but the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better.
Thanks for any help x

 

[MemberX]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

This is called dominance, the head rearing is trying to see who can get high enough to be the top dog so to speak. As this is happening when you take them out of their cage then they think its a new area and have to establish dominance once again.

I wouldn't seperate but just monitor them, hopefully they will work it out for themselves without you having to remove one. If the worst does happen then maybe you can have them living side by side until they are maybe old enough to tolerate one another again.

Good luck, I've seven boars and had this with a couple of mine which didn't turn out for the better hence the reason I've got an extra 2 guineas as I paired them with babes.

Louise

 

[wales1000]

When I first had piggies, we had two boys who lived together, at first they were fine, but then they did this quite a bit and then Charlie ended up making Louis nose bleed and gave him a cut, so were seperated altogether. Good luck with yoursxx

 

[MemberY]

Try makeing their floor time area smaller! if they have the whole living room, it is a large area and their scent isnt there. Could you try a blocked off area and use fleece or towels which they will scent so they know its theirs?

Head rearing is a prelude to a fight and I think if a fight breaks out, you need to seperate. Keep a towel handy to throw over them if they do attack one another. This disorientates them and you can get them out of harms way plus you wont lose a finger!.

Best of luck!