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Bonding Can 4 males live successfully and peacefully together forever?

Rocky5

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Hello everyone! I have just spent the entire day doing guinea pig maintenance :p All the while having Gibson, Blake, Snickers, and Toro in a huge enclosure (10x5). Everything has gone wonderfully, Gibson tried to start some fights but everyone just ignored him so Gib went to sleep in the corner. It was so cute! I moved them to a cleaned 3x5 and everyone seems good! I have never heard of a group of 4 male pigs so my question is, will the coexisting continue forever or will I have to separate them eventually? Also why did Gibson and Toro not get along by themselves but were fine with Blake and Snickers? Thanks so much in advance!
 

bpatters

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It can work. It can also go south at any point. You'll just have to keep a close eye on things, and check them regularly for bite marks.

Who knows why the four did better than the two? You'd have to ask them. Pigs are just funny sometimes.
 

Rocky5

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Thanks [MENTION=13820]bpatters[/MENTION] :) Do you know of anyone who has a group of 4+ male guinea pigs?
 

bpatters

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Yes, several. You can read the "Boars Behaving Badly" thread over at GL for some amusement.
 

Rocky5

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Wow, I thought my boars were crazy! I might have to get a stuffed guinea pig toy for the boys to harass instead of each other. Thanks to Feylin for the visual. For 4 boars should I have 4,5,6 or more water bottles? Right now I have a single large hay pile that seems to be working. It is in the middle of the 3x5 and takes up about a 2x3. They seem to enjoy running through it. I found some pin head sized punctures or bites that seem like hard hair pulling or something like that. Do you think I should separate them because of that?
 

Rocky5

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Also for the harassment toy, do you think it needs to be a guinea pig or can it be any animal?
 

bpatters

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Like they can tell the difference between stuffed toys? I don't think so. :)
 

bmt28

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I'm anxious to hear how this goes for your newly formed heard. I have all boys as well however my are spilt into 2 pairs. They are happy boys as is and although I wish I could put them all together I don't want to ruin a perfectly happy situation. Keep us updated & I hope it goes well for your boars.
 

Rocky5

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@bpatters If it's guinea pig sized it must be guinea pig. Gibson even humped my hand once! Disgusting little buggers aren't they?
[MENTION=33851]bmt28[/MENTION] Thanks, I will be posting a bunch of pictures once I vacuum. My reasoning was I will either end up with 4 singles or 2 pairs or a trio or a group of 4 so the pros far outweighed the cons. Sadly I have already found boar glue on Snickers face, again! After about a month I will add a bunch of levels and cool stuff like that!
 

Rocky5

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@bpatters and [MENTION=33851]bmt28[/MENTION] I know that size is a huge part in determining ranking so in order from biggest to smallest is Snickers, Toro, Blake, Gibson. Right now I know for certain Snickers is the most dominate. His time with Blake seems to have made Blake much more submissive, poor baby was cowering behind me for a good part of the introductions. I didn't have the heart to send him off into the mess of guineas. Gibson seems to really want to be dominate but he is failing miserably. Every time a pig snaps at him for bugging them he cries in the corner. Then he will huff into a puffy, black and white ball and rumble at the big meanie that mad him cry. I'm not really sure who is more dominate between Blake and Toro. Toro seems to be below Blake but Blake has his moments of high dominance, friendliness, and severe submission. One thing I noticed is that everybody has gotten much more friendly and open to being pet on the head. I just found this interesting :)
 

bpatters

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I know that size is a huge part in determining ranking

How do you know that? I know of several herds where a smaller pig is the most dominant.

And just as an FYI, if you're doing introductions, you shouldn't be anywhere that a pig can cower behind you. You put them in the neutral area, and then you leave them alone to work out things for themselves.

One more FYI. Not all groups of pigs establish obvious dominance. Of my two sets of sows, I couldn't for the life of me tell you which was/is dominant.
 
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Rocky5

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@bpatters I thought I read it somewhere on a thread here. My mistake, sorry!

I didn't know if they were going to fight and I wanted to be able to throw a towel on them to break it up. My aim isn't the best so the closer the better. Next time I have to do intros I will be outside the cage. :)
 
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