AlbusAndBen
New Born Pup
Hi everyone!
I'm new here, and I brought my 3 guinea pig sows (Hazel, Cherry and Clover) home from the support adoption section and my local P@H about 4 weeks ago.
They're about a year old and I was told that they are sisters (they look VERY alike), and so I presume they have lived together all their lives.
Clover (dominant piggy - the one in my profile pic) has been displaying normal dominant behaviour (mounting, chasing, teeth chattering etc.) towards Cherry (I presume this is bc Cherry is the biggest pig, although she is a softie and wouldn't hurt a fly- Hazel is the smallest and Clover snuggles up to her). I thought that this would settle down as they got used to their new surroundings.
The problem started last week when I noticed she was becoming much more aggressive towards Cherry - chasing her faster, lunging at her, kicking her out of the bedroom and the pigloo Cherry always uses and not letting her get to the food bowl (I hand feed them veggies, and stuff various places with hay, so she is getting food). And this afternoon I noticed a deep cut in Cherry's ear - it's visible from both sides of her ear and has clearly bled a lot.
At the mo they have a 2ft x 5ft hutch and a 2.2 meter by 80cm cage (with an added 80 x 80 loft) is supposed to arrive at some point this week. I'm hoping that the behaviour will settle down when they get a bigger cage, but I am concerned that the fighting will only get worse.
I've phoned my vets and they're useless they refuse to give advice over the phone and I'm frankly under the impression that they just want my money and don't actually care about the pets. All the advice I can find is aimed at boars (I used to have a pair of brothers and I had to separate them because the fighting was serious and they were gonna kill each other - what am I doing wrong!?), can anyone who has had past experience with sows fighting help me? Should I separate them? Cherry minds her own business and never bothers Clover, she keeps to the other side of the hutch, so why would Clover lash out at her?
Thank you!
I'm new here, and I brought my 3 guinea pig sows (Hazel, Cherry and Clover) home from the support adoption section and my local P@H about 4 weeks ago.
They're about a year old and I was told that they are sisters (they look VERY alike), and so I presume they have lived together all their lives.
Clover (dominant piggy - the one in my profile pic) has been displaying normal dominant behaviour (mounting, chasing, teeth chattering etc.) towards Cherry (I presume this is bc Cherry is the biggest pig, although she is a softie and wouldn't hurt a fly- Hazel is the smallest and Clover snuggles up to her). I thought that this would settle down as they got used to their new surroundings.
The problem started last week when I noticed she was becoming much more aggressive towards Cherry - chasing her faster, lunging at her, kicking her out of the bedroom and the pigloo Cherry always uses and not letting her get to the food bowl (I hand feed them veggies, and stuff various places with hay, so she is getting food). And this afternoon I noticed a deep cut in Cherry's ear - it's visible from both sides of her ear and has clearly bled a lot.
At the mo they have a 2ft x 5ft hutch and a 2.2 meter by 80cm cage (with an added 80 x 80 loft) is supposed to arrive at some point this week. I'm hoping that the behaviour will settle down when they get a bigger cage, but I am concerned that the fighting will only get worse.
I've phoned my vets and they're useless they refuse to give advice over the phone and I'm frankly under the impression that they just want my money and don't actually care about the pets. All the advice I can find is aimed at boars (I used to have a pair of brothers and I had to separate them because the fighting was serious and they were gonna kill each other - what am I doing wrong!?), can anyone who has had past experience with sows fighting help me? Should I separate them? Cherry minds her own business and never bothers Clover, she keeps to the other side of the hutch, so why would Clover lash out at her?
Thank you!
Last edited:
