About two weeks ago, we bought two male guinea pigs from a pet store. Hubby and I don't know much about them but we did some research before we bought and have continued to search online about them. We bought them for our toddler son, we are very careful when he pets them. I'm very much an animal lover so I'm actually pretty strict when he's holding or petting them. We named them Green Bean and Kiki because those are easy for my son to say. Anyway, a few days ago I noticed that Kiki (who is smaller than Green Bean) has been sleeping outside of the hiddie and that Green Bean always eats first. (Let me stop and say, we are planning to make a much larger cage for them in a couple of weeks. We bought a cage from PetCo that an employee said was big enough for two guinea's.... it's pathetic! It's the biggest one we could find and it's too small. Needless to say, we don't have room for two hiddie's and they really don't have their own space right now.) Last night, I put them in their kiddie pool for some running while I cleaned the cage. I noticed that Kiki was trying to hump (pardon my language) Green Bean. They were doing this thing where they chirped at each other and were kinda shuttering and then would fight. They both started humping (pardon) each other's heads. I'm assuming that Kiki was sick of getting second pick and was trying to dominate. I had read that two males will "fight" but to separate them if they actually charged each other and were trying to hurt one another. I noticed some blood on the blanket in the pool and upon inspection saw that Kiki's upper lip had been cut.
I don't think they were actually trying to hurt one another, but we separated them. It breaks my heart that we can't have them together, we bought two because I know they are social animals. I need some advice... ANY advice. I don't want to keep them separated for long, but how do I keep them from fighting. Should I wait to reintroduce them 'til we get a bigger cage made, or will it be too late by then. We plan for them to have their own food bowls and hiddie's when we get their new home made. Sorry this is so long!
About Guinea Pigs
12-01-08, 12:07 pm
