Pregnancy Pregnant pig's female cage mate

[Thelma_n_Louise]

Hello!
Backstory: I adopted two guinea pigs on September 20th as the center pets for the child care center I work at. When we were picking out our piggies, we were given a lot of misinformation. We were told all the pigs were the same age, and that they were all females from the same litter. They were all relatively close to the same size, with the exception of one bigger one that we were told just ate more than the others. (The bigger pig seemed snippy when the guy helping us was picking her up, so we chose a different pig) We picked out two females, got them home and realized one was a boy.

We took him back to exchange for a female, as we did not want to breed them. When I took the male back, I decided to look for myself, and realized that they were all males, except for the bigger pig, so I decided to take her home, and figured she just anxious from being cramped in a small cage. - In hindsight, I realize these were all big red flags, but no regrets. The guinea pigs are shy, but coming around. The children love them and all is well...

Unfortunately, the larger pig - Louise, is unexpectedly pregnant. We adopted them on September 20th and were told they had been there for a month but I don't really believe anything we were told from that place. At her vet check up on Oct. 3rd she was estimated to be 5-6 months old and weighed 780g. We suspected she was pregnant because she had two rather large lumps, but the vet wasn't certain if she was pregnant or had ovarian cysts. We are now very certain. She's up to 876g and you can feel and see baby(babies?) moving inside her. She's eating well, but can be pretty timid. She does enjoy being held and is getting fatter every day. We have no idea when to expect the arrival of her babies, but assume it will be soon.

Now for my actual question - She has a female cage mate. We aren't sure how old she is, but she's much smaller (640g) and is possibly her baby from a previous pregnancy. Thelma has been rumble strutting a lot the past two days, and seems to kick Louise out of her favorite sack. They aren't fighting or biting, but they don't seem to be the best of friends either. The vet mentioned that if Louise was indeed pregnant they would be fine staying together, but I'm wondering if this is normal behavior, or if we should separate them. When we do have them out for floor time and Thelma can't find Louise, she seems to cry and runs around looking for her so I'm worried that separating may be stressful, especially since we aren't exactly sure when Louise will give birth. If it is recommended that we separate them, who should we remove?

Also, we do plan on separating any males after 3 weeks, as we do not want to promote breeding when there are so many piggies available for adoption.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[bpatters]

I'd leave them together if the cage is large enough for two adults and some unknown number of pups. If they're crowded, the pups may get their ears nibbled.

GP sows generally make excellent aunties, and will help raise the pups. Do keep an eye on things, in case you have the one-in-a-thousand sow that doesn't like pups, but they should be ok.

 

[Thelma_n_Louise]

They're currently in a 2x4 grid C&C, so there should be enough room. We'll upgrade depending on the number of female pups. Thanks for the info!