Two boys and two girls with different cage

[Mizuli]

Hi
i am a guinea pig owner from Japan. Two girls and two boys currently are living in a separate cage by gender.
But i think boys can smell girls so they get stressed and also one girl is very dominant to the other one so i am thinking to castrate the boys and let them live all together so the situation stressed boys and dominant girl bullying the other might get calmed down.

But there are couple things i am concerned about.
Boys are nearly two years old now - are they too late for the surgery?
Will two female and two male in the same cage cause more trouble and stress to them?

Any suggestions and opinions are welcome!

 

[Rivervixen]

Please don’t put two boys in with two girls, the boys will fight relentlessly over the girls, it would be a recipe for disaster

 

[Mizuli]

Sorry not castrate its neuter sorry for my english

 

[Mizuli]

Please don’t put two boys in with two girls, the boys will fight relentlessly over the girls, it would be a recipe for disaster

Thank for the reply! Will it hapen even after boys get neutered?

 

[Freela]

Neutering males doesn't change behavior. Two boys in with females WILL fight, even if they are neutered. If you wanted to have the boys neutered, you could try to do two different male/female pairs, housed separately. You can neuter males at 2 years, but it's still a surgery with inherent risk, especially depending on how experienced the vet is with small animal surgery. An alternative to surgery might be to try to move the two cages further away so the males can't smell the females anymore, if you have the space to put cages in different rooms (not sure how close together the cages are now, but further is better!) Hope this helps a big.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Even if you neuter the boys they cannot ever live with the girls. You can only keep one neutered boy with any number of girls. If you try to put two boys and two girls together, there will be huge fights.
If you wanted to neuter them, then they would have to wait for six weeks after their surgery to become infertile and then you would have to split them up and put one of the boys with one of the girls and keep them in separate cages still.
The only other thing you can do is move the boys well away from the girls and ideally keep the boys in a totally different room to the girls.
Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?

 

[Mizuli]

Even if you neuter the boys they cannot ever live with the girls. You can only keep one neutered boy with any number of girls. If you try to put two boys and two girls together, there will be huge fights.
If you wanted to neuter them, then they would have to wait for six weeks after their surgery to become infertile and then you would have to split them up and put one of the boys with one of the girls and keep them in separate cages still.
The only other thing you can do is move the boys well away from the girls and ideally keep the boys in a totally different room to the girls.
Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?

Thank you!

 

[Mizuli]

Neutering males doesn't change behavior. Two boys in with females WILL fight, even if they are neutered. If you wanted to have the boys neutered, you could try to do two different male/female pairs, housed separately. You can neuter males at 2 years, but it's still a surgery with inherent risk, especially depending on how experienced the vet is with small animal surgery. An alternative to surgery might be to try to move the two cages further away so the males can't smell the females anymore, if you have the space to put cages in different rooms (not sure how close together the cages are now, but further is better!) Hope this helps a big.

Thank you!

 

[Wiebke]

Hi
i am a guinea pig owner from Japan. Two girls and two boys currently are living in a separate cage by gender.
But i think boys can smell girls so they get stressed and also one girl is very dominant to the other one so i am thinking to castrate the boys and let them live all together so the situation stressed boys and dominant girl bullying the other might get calmed down.

But there are couple things i am concerned about.
Boys are nearly two years old now - are they too late for the surgery?
Will two female and two male in the same cage cause more trouble and stress to them?

Any suggestions and opinions are welcome!

Hi!

Two boars (neutered or not) do not work with two sows. You can basically try to make two mixed gender pairs or keep your existing boar pair out of sight and reach of sow pheromones.

I know that space is a problem in Japan but you need to keep your boars out of sight and out of reach of pheromones.
Here is more information on pairings and your comprehensive neutering guide, which should answer all your questions in what neutering doe and does not do in the first chapter.
Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?
A Closer Look At Pairs (Boars - Sows - Mixed)

You can find the detaile rules and possible options (there are several) for keeping boars and sows safely in the same room in our boar guide, chapter three (dos and don'ts): A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars

I hope that the more in-depth information in the guide links will help you make an informed decision between several possible solutions - even if they are not the ones you are thinking of.