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Dominance Guinea pigs females fighting

GuineaPig540

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Hello,

I have two female guinea pigs. They live in a big two stories cage. Both are 3 months old and were bought together. Now they've settled in their new home and they started testing the dominance. That went on for two days. But now one of them started to chatther teeth and the fur is up when she doesn't like something. She also started doing this to me. Now this doesn't happen everytime, but it does happen every few hours that this one is chasing the other one through the whole cage. The other one is scared now. They both selected to sleep on their own floor and it's okay. But the less dominant one can't come to the other one's floor or she gets chased. And if the other one is on her floor she chases her to the house and the less dominant one can't come out. I've now had to separate them through the night because I can't sleep anymore. Now I saw that the dominant one chased the other to her floor and had some fur in the mouth, so that means that she started to bite her. It hasn't been nothing more serious than that. Can you give me some help as to how to deal with this? It's a problem to separate them in one floor so that they could sniff each other because then the cage is too small, but I'll figure it out if I have to. Do you have any idea?

Thank you for your help.
 

bpatters

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I think they'll work it out if you'll leave them to it, but you may have to make some changes.

Guinea pigs need a large flat space to run in, so two-story cages are not suitable for them. If you've got hideys with only one door, take them out or cut another hole in them -- one-door hideys are just an invitation for one pig to trap another and get its face slashed.

How large is your cage? Two guinea pigs need a minimum of eight square feet of flat space, and more is better.

And are you sure they're both female? You've turned them over and compared their private parts?

As far as not being able to sleep, move them to another room or buy yourself some ear plugs. Mack's silicone plugs work very well.
 

Guinea Pig Papa

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This sounds like normal behaviour sorting out dominance, and by separating them at night you're only making it worse.

They only need to be separated if they've drawn blood. Other than that, they need to sort it out. Unfortunately, you'll need to figure out your sleeping situation on your own. If they've got houses that only have one door, you're likely going to end up with one pig trapping the other in the house and getting their face bitten for their efforts.

One of the main reasons for guinea pig aggression is cage size. Second floors do NOT count towards square footage. Two pigs should have preferably 10 square feet, and more is ALWAYS better.

When you separate the pigs and then put them back together, they have to begin sorting out who the boss is all over again, which only prolongs your problems and stresses both pigs out.
 

ZiggyPig

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Sleep advice- white noise sound machine. Regardless of whether they are arguing or not, they will make noise throughout the night.

Also, just an FYI because it scared me the first time; once you have the larger cage and they have worked out the dominance, there will still be periods of ridiculousness as they grow older. Like yesterday and today - my dominant female is in heat and will not leave the other one alone. Rumbling, chasing, mounting, squealing. They've lived together for over a year (we got them a few months ago.)
 

GuineaPig540

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Thank you all for your answers. My cage is 8 square meters big with two floors. I can't make it bigger. It's made for rabbits and they are fine with it. I will do my best to do what you suggested so thank you. And yes they are both females.
 

GuineaPig540

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I just had to separate them again. One had a little dried blood under her eye. The dominant one was chasing her all over the cage. They were getting along fine today and they each got their own bed and hay at each ends and it was okay. The dominant one occupied the upper floor and she sleeps there. The less dominant one can't come up there but she's happy down on the first floor, so sometimes they are both down eating. But there still is some dominance displaying and chasing. So as you see it's best to separate them at night because each one sleeps on her floor and likes it. Do you think that I should keep them separated? Because this can't go on. They are together all day and they each prefer their own floor. They can also come out in the room and run around if they want. So if this was dominance displaying it should be over soon, but it still isn't.
 

GuineaPig540

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I looked at the injured one and she just has a little scratch below her eye. You can see it because it is visible, the fur is missing a little. So it's just a scratch and a little red dried blood perhaps. She's okay now, cuddling with me and as I said I seperated them. How long do you think I should keep it that way and then try again?
 

bpatters

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Maybe one of them is in heat, and things will calm down.

I don't think you should separate them at all, but your cage with two floors is definitely interfering in their ability to adjust to each other.
 

GuineaPig540

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I will try to let them calm down for a day and then try to have them both on the same floor for one day. But there are a lot of people that have multiple floors. I don't understand what to do anymore. The cage is perfect. This is too hard. The cage is meant to be used as a whole. This shouldn't be that hard, they are not children and even with children it isn't that hard. I've read SO MANY advices and everything. Thank you for your answers.
 

Darlboo

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Hi. I got 2 girls last year. They got on great. No problems at all. This year we built a bigger cage and got 2 more girls. They were introduced properly and got on ok. They chased each other and chatted teeth for a while. Anyway recently. The 2 older ones are having problems. I think one of them is trying to dominate and has bitten the others backside and she has lost lots of her fur. What do I do. How do I stop her from doing this. She only does it to her sister and not the two others
 

bpatters

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How big is the new cage? Four sows require a lot of space -- 13 square feet is the minimum, and more is better. Much more is much better.
 
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