Hi!
My boyfriend and I are excited to adopt our first guinea pig(s). I had them as a kid and loved them, and finally have an opportunity to have them as an adult. The local animal shelter has a pair of 1 yr old male pigs that have lived together their entire life. They have been in the shelter for about a month and were surrendered because of their previous owner's landlord. We were excited to adopt them, we just needed to be sure we had an appropriate setup and clearance from our own landlord. Now that we have everything we need, I called the shelter to discuss adopting these boys. The representative then informed me that they actually had to separate the pigs and that they are now being adopted out separately - not as a bonded pair as they originally were. She said that one of the pigs was mounting and pulling the fur of the other after a cage change. They temporarily separated them, then tried putting them back together with no success. They are now permanently separated and available for adoption separately.
I would still love to adopt at least one of these boys, but now I have some concerns. If they have lived their entire lives together, I'm afraid of bringing just one home and him being lonely. I'm wondering if the stress of being in the shelter and potentially in cages around other pigs caused stress between them that would be remedied by them being alone together again. Also, I don't want to just adopt one and then his health suffer from being a single pig.
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? Do you think that the shelter is correct in thinking they are better off by themselves, or will I just have a sad and lonely pig if I adopt one of them?
Side note - how much space does everyone recommend for 2 male pigs? There's a lot of conflicting info out there so just curious what everyone thinks.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
-Ashlee
My boyfriend and I are excited to adopt our first guinea pig(s). I had them as a kid and loved them, and finally have an opportunity to have them as an adult. The local animal shelter has a pair of 1 yr old male pigs that have lived together their entire life. They have been in the shelter for about a month and were surrendered because of their previous owner's landlord. We were excited to adopt them, we just needed to be sure we had an appropriate setup and clearance from our own landlord. Now that we have everything we need, I called the shelter to discuss adopting these boys. The representative then informed me that they actually had to separate the pigs and that they are now being adopted out separately - not as a bonded pair as they originally were. She said that one of the pigs was mounting and pulling the fur of the other after a cage change. They temporarily separated them, then tried putting them back together with no success. They are now permanently separated and available for adoption separately.
I would still love to adopt at least one of these boys, but now I have some concerns. If they have lived their entire lives together, I'm afraid of bringing just one home and him being lonely. I'm wondering if the stress of being in the shelter and potentially in cages around other pigs caused stress between them that would be remedied by them being alone together again. Also, I don't want to just adopt one and then his health suffer from being a single pig.
Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? Do you think that the shelter is correct in thinking they are better off by themselves, or will I just have a sad and lonely pig if I adopt one of them?
Side note - how much space does everyone recommend for 2 male pigs? There's a lot of conflicting info out there so just curious what everyone thinks.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
-Ashlee