Behavior Introducing new guinea pig to my other guinea pig

[funsizeddragon]

Hi,
I'm a new cavy owner and I bought two guinea pigs together, and one passed away due to an unknown illness. I bought a new guinea after a little bit, and I have introduced the new one to my other one. They are both about 8 weeks old and both females. However the new guinea pig keeps bullying my other guinea pig out of the hideaway. Is this normal? What can I do to help them get along better?

 

[Soecara]

It is fairly normal, however certain circumstances can make the behavior worse/happen more often.

How did you introduce them? Does the hideaway have more than one entrance? How large is their cage?

 

[bpatters]

If the hidey doesn't have more than one door, either throw it away or cut a new door in it. No hidey in a guinea pig cage should ever allow a guinea pig to be trapped. That just invites one pig to trap another, and may well result in injury if the trapped pig tries to get out.

 

[funsizeddragon]

It’s the living world deluxe habitat, it’s pretty big, has one big entrance, the guinea she was with before it died had no problem sharing. I introduced them in a playpen, which neither of them had been in before. And they seemed to be doing fine. My first guinea pig was popcorning. But once I put them in the habitat the new one started pushing the other out of the hideaway

 

[bpatters]

It's not really a suitable cage for guinea pigs. It's barely six square feet, and the recommended minimum for one pig is 7.5 square feet. Two pigs need at least that, and preferably more.

At a bare minimum, that hidey needs to be removed. It takes up room that they need to run, and as you've discovered, one pig can trap another. That can wind up with the trapping pig getting its face slashed, and that means a vet bill. You could replace the hidey with fleece draped across two corners. That would give them privacy if they wanted it but still let them move around.

If I could, I'd put large, flashing display signs on every website and store that sells pet cages that say "No commercial cage is large enough for two guinea pigs."

 

[Kiwi_girl]

We just finished introducing nee guinea pigs this weekend. It took 6.5 hours in a huge neutral area for them to stop teeth chattering and rumbling. It took this long for them to decide who was going to be the boss and one of them got slightly injured in a tussle. After that there was another 5 hours of supervised time when we put them All back in their completely cleaned cage. They need a proper introduction and they need time to adjust, days if not weeks. Many guinea pigs are frenemies so as long as no serious fighting like teeth chattering and biting they are fine