Guinea Pig Behaviour.

[Emmy-Dan]

Hello. I hope I am asking in the correct fourm...wasn't sure which one was best. I sit here at my PC for hours with my girlies next door to me. I am so easily distracted by watching them play.

My girls who are 16 weeks (four of them) are now showing more of their personailities. Two are defintly trying to dominate each other ut one of these two keeps growling and swaying her bottom sideways. What does this mean? I read it somewhere but can't remember where. Is she just trying to warn the others to keep clear? They don't fight....just get on each others nerves sometimes. In the middle of making a bigger cage so they have more space.

[cavyinhawaii]

What she is doing is called rumblestrut. If you do a search on this site tons of threads will come up on the subject. It's a dominance dance.

[Pumpkin_RIP]

Yup, Cavyinhawaii is correct. The rumblestut isn't harmful or the start of a fight, just trying to determine pack pecking order.

[Wheek Weak]

She's just telling the others, "I'm the boss of you"!

Sows will also rumblestrut when they're in heat. Which, according to GuineaLynx, is approx. every 16 days for about 24-48 hours.

Ruby rumblestrutted a lot when she had ovarian cysts. Some of her other symptoms were: loss of hair on her sides, not eating as much as normal, rumblestrutting, and her sides bulging.

You'll probably see less rumblestrutting when you get the bigger cage done and they have more room to stay out of each other's way.