Fighting Two older boars are fighting suddlenly, blood drawn

[FailedFoster]

Hello,

I've had my two pigs, Nappa and Vegeta, for about a year now. They're 2 years and 1 1/2 years old, respectively. They've both been in the same cage (2x5 C&C cage with a wide upper loft) together since I got them. They're the only pigs in the household and have been the only pigs.

Backstory: did my own rescue of Vegeta, got him a buddy a few months later from a formal pig rescue. They had proper introductions and have only had normal dominance behavior since then until recently.

In about the past month or so, they both started displaying more dominant behavior than usual, which I thought might just be a phase. Well this evening, they got into a fight where they were jumping and looked like levitating balls of fur. It lasted about 4 seconds. Vegeta got some hair out of Nappa and Nappa was bleeding on histhe lip. I separated them, and I'm just about done setting up a smaller cage for Vegeta. Nappa is in the larger cage. Nappa was the dominant one in the pair before all of this.

I tried reintroducing them shortly after it happened, and they seemed fine. Nappa groomed himself and Vegeta laid down. I put them back in the cage and they seemed okay, but they started gearing up again (raised hackles, chattering, squaring off, raising noses and biting at each other).

It would absolutely break my heart to separate them permanently, but of course I will always do what's best for my babies and I would keep them. I am planning on doing a buddy bath as outlined by CavySpirit to see if that would help. I want to know (and I understand there may not be a complete answer for this, but girl's gotta try):

1) What are the chances they can get back together?
2) What could have caused this all of a sudden? It seems like they would be older than adolescents.
3) What are some suggested next steps?
4) Did I mess up? (I realize me trying to reintroduce them 5 minutes later was stupid and hopelessly optimistic, but I mean along the lines of separating them for tonight and such)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hope that my boys can be together again.

 

[FailedFoster]

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention this: I have two smaller cage bought stores (got them when I rescued Vegeta). Would it be better if they were both in unfamiliar and separate cages? And should they be right next to each other or farther apart?

 

[Comely Guineas]

I would do the entire introduction process again https://guinea-pigs.livejournal.com/3002707.html and see if that works out. I'm not sure why they would all of a sudden fight that's weird.

 

[Piggly12]

Maybe one of them has some kind of illness, or mites or something else is wrong that is making him grumpy? Guinea pigs are very good (unfortunately for us) at hiding any illnesses they have. That could explain why they were acting more aggressively during the past month?

 

[FailedFoster]

Thank you for all the replies. I do have a vet appointment for both of them for 3 PM today. I was also wondering: would it be best to put them right next to each other in separate cages or farther apart in separate cages?