Aggression Is it okay to separate my guinea pigs with cage divider?

ejl00 · Jun 28, 2019

Hi there! I just purchased the xl guinea pig cage for my three male guinea pigs. They are approximately 9 months old. They have been living together since birth but in the past couple of months I've noticed the biggest one nips and chases one of his brothers resulting in the poor little guy missing half his back hair. The littlest one of the three is blind and deaf and the two bigger ones leave him alone. I got the cage divider and I am wondering if it is ok to seperate the bully from the other two. I don't want him to get depressed and lonely, but I also don't want to see him hurt his littler brothers. Is there a way to do this so none of them are compromised? Thank you!

ItsaZoo · Jun 28, 2019

For three males you will need at least a 12 square foot cage and maybe more. Males are naturally competitive and when they hit puberty they will establish their space and tensions grow. Most of the people here will tell you that housing a group of males will usually fail. Sometimes two works, but usually not more than that. You will have to do whatever it takes to keep them safe so if one is bullying he may have to be separated.

If you have fleece forests, or just a piece of fleece that you can cut long fringes on and hang in the cage, that helps because they don’t see each other directly.

ejl00 · Jun 28, 2019

ItsaZoo said:
For three males you will need at least a 12 square foot cage and maybe more. Males are naturally competitive and when they hit puberty they will establish their space and tensions grow. Most of the people here will tell you that housing a group of males will usually fail. Sometimes two works, but usually not more than that. You will have to do whatever it takes to keep them safe so if one is bullying he may have to be separated.

If you have fleece forests, or just a piece of fleece that you can cut long fringes on and hang in the cage, that helps because they don’t see each other directly.

Thank you for your reply. Their new cage is is 13 sqft. They haven't been in it yet as I am still assembling it, but I will see how they do with more space and go from their. It seems like the bullying tends to happen when I fill up their food dishes so maybe I could try feeding them separately. It's sad because when they were littler they would all snuggle together in their hut and now only two fit in it at once.

bpatters · Jun 28, 2019

Get rid of the hut, or cut more holes in it. No hidey in a guinea pig cage should ever have only one door -- that's just an invitation for one pig to trap another and get its face slashed for its efforts. You should always have one more hidey than guinea pigs, but fleece forests can serve the same purpose, as can fleece clipped across the corners of the cage.

ItsaZoo · Jun 28, 2019

The new cage should help since it’s a nice size. And as bpatters said, hideys should have two or more doors so no one gets trapped. There should also be a few places with food or maybe scattered food in the cage so one can’t guard the food and keep others away. They’re growing from sweet little siblings into teenagers so there’s bound to be conflicts.

ejl00 · Jun 29, 2019

bpatters said:
Get rid of the hut, or cut more holes in it. No hidey in a guinea pig cage should ever have only one door -- that's just an invitation for one pig to trap another and get its face slashed for its efforts. You should always have one more hidey than guinea pigs, but fleece forests can serve the same purpose, as can fleece clipped across the corners of the cage.

Thank you so much for the advice!

ejl00 · Jun 29, 2019

ItsaZoo said:
The new cage should help since it’s a nice size. And as bpatters said, hideys should have two or more doors so no one gets trapped. There should also be a few places with food or maybe scattered food in the cage so one can’t guard the food and keep others away. They’re growing from sweet little siblings into teenagers so there’s bound to be conflicts.

Do they get friendlier with each other again after they have fully matured?

bpatters · Jun 29, 2019

Sometimes, sometimes not. Some pigs will be glued to each other's sides, others will tolerate other pigs in the cage but never sleep or snuggle with them, others will always be a little testy.

ejl00 · Jun 29, 2019

bpatters said:
Sometimes, sometimes not. Some pigs will be glued to each other's sides, others will tolerate other pigs in the cage but never sleep or snuggle with them, others will always be a little testy.

They were definitely the glued at the hip kind a few month ago, but now the two bigger guys in particular seem to have a dominance thing going. I am glad they are both very sweet to my little blind/deaf baby because he has enough trouble as it is without being chased. I am going to try putting their food bowls at the opposite sides of the cage so that they naturally separate themselves while eating. I found an example of the fleece hidey and I will try that out too.

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Aggression Is it okay to separate my guinea pigs with cage divider?

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