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Fighting Help, sharing a cage with 2 female piggies and one of their pups!

camh98

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I have two female Guinea Pigs, Phoebe(the new mama) and Layla, Two days ago Phoebe gave birth to two pups, a boy and a girl. A few hours after birth (I allowed plenty of time for the mama to clean up her pups) I moved my non-pregnant piggy Layla into a separate cage across the room because I felt that Layla was a little too nosy at the time and felt like she was bothering Phoebe and her pups from bonding. The problem I'm having now is, I just tried to add Layla back into the homemade 2x4 c&c cage, where I have plenty of hiding spots with two entrances, and Phoebe and Layla just almost immediately got into it. They've happily lived together for months now and I've never seen such aggression out of them as I just did when trying to bring them back together in the same cage, after Phoebe's birth. Phoebe has always been the more dominate pig where Layla is way more passive when it comes to most all things. During the "merge" attempt, there was teeth chattering, showing of the teeth, Phoebe was casing Layla all around the cage and then ultimately led to them coming at each other to begin a fight. I then, put a towel over top of them to break it up and separated Layla immediately. I know you're not supposed to separate them unless there's blood draw but, with the newborn pups in the cage I didn't want it to get to that point and I just couldn't stand to see them so hostile. To clarify, Phoebe(the new mom) was the main culprit here. Layla, not bringing any harm to the pups; aside from quickly checking them out, was being harassed by Phoebe. They are now currently in separate cages, I did place the cages closer to each other so they can hear each others noises but, I honestly don't know where to go from here. I didn't anticipate any of this, considering how well they got along before I separated them after Phoebe's gave birth. So any advice about getting them to get along in the same cage again would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! and I'll attach a picture of the two pups below!
 

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Soecara

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This is a normal reaction for a new mother guinea pig during attempted introductions, her hormones will be running wild right now. As you separated Layla it is like they never met, they have to start again completely from scratch and Phoebe won't be too receptive to a "new" cage mate until her pups are a bit older and her hormones calm down a bit.

I would say do not try re-introducing them again until the pups are three weeks old (you will also need to separate the male pup from all of the girls at this age). Do introductions completely from scratch, full neutral area give them hours to settle before moving into a freshly cleaned out cage etc. Here is a good page to read with good in depth information about proper introductions between guinea pigs https://guinea-pigs.livejournal.com/3002707.html
 

bpatters

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Agreed. It wasn't necessary to separate them in the first place. But now that you've done it, you'll have to wait until the pups are older to reintroduce them.

Just as an FYI, I doubt that GPs "bond" in the way you're thinking. If more than one sow in a cage gives birth at the same time, the pups will nurse from any mother. And most sows make very good aunties and help raise the pups in the cage.
 
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