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Guinea Pigs fighting and separate them

aden_al

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Dear everyone,

I hope you all are doing great. I'm Aden AL and I recently adopted 2 female guinea pigs from a Texas shelter: Oktavia (nice and easy going) and Altaria (skittish with me and kind of aggressive). Oktavia seemed to be calmer and Altaria seemed to be afraid of her, but Altaria sometimes would randomly go after her. I am not sure there's an alpha.

I originally had one female guinea pig at my parents house (2007-2013), her name was Priscilla. She didn't have a companion, but seemed to be very happy with us.S She would never pee on myself (she would indicate me when she wanted to pee), and didn't mind being picked up. I guess because i got her when she was very small, so she was really attached me and my family and she would be free in the living room.

After several years I decided to have guinea pigs again because my life is now more stable, and this time I decided to adopt them from the shelter. I really like both of them. They are in a 2 by 6 grid cage. Originally, it was a 2 by 4 and made the transition from white bedding to fleece. On the upcoming days, I noticed that Altaria (the skittish one that doesn't like me and that screams when being picked up) had some blood in her lip, it was superficial and she didn't make a big deal when i was cleaning the wound. After that I decided to increase the size to 2 by 6, but my fleece was too small, so I put white bedding on the remaining part. After that they seemed to get along better and even slept sometimes in the same side (see below, they have two parts).

So today I had let them out so they could play. Everything was fine. I trimmed their nails (skittish one didn't let me do much, while Oktavia allowed me to some degree). Once I put them back I started preparing to clean the house. Then I notice something disturbing: Oktavia (the calm one but somehow stronger) had a cut in one of her nostrils! And she made a very strange sound, like the sound of a cat when they are angry, it's a sound I've never ever heard a guinea pig do. It's not the typical angry guinea pig sounds, like a cat sound, coming from the throat.

I felt really angry with Altaria (I assume she did it when hiding in one of the hideys), but then I felt bad for feeling angry because she didn't really understand what she did. I cleaned the nose of Oktavia and put a little neosporin. I checked Altaria to see she had any injuries, but nothing. So I was cleaning the house, and I was determined to separate them. Altaria ran to Oktavia (she does that when she's scared) and Oktavia made again that strange sound. I separate them and cleaned the house, Altaria wanted to run to the other side but was confused about the wall.

Now separated, I gave them food. Altaria ate like nothing had happened. Oktavia (she can be seen outside) just stayed inside the hidey (I have the guineadad fleece with the special hideys) and didn't react to the food. She went out for food after a while.

I think they just don't like each other. Oktavia tolerates more Altaria, but Altaria starts screaming every time Oktavia goes nearby (sometimes she wants hay or eat from the other plate, etc.), and Oktavia just ignores her. So in general they cannot be close to each other; i guess they had less fights because they had more space. They were supposed to be bonded, but I feel that they cannot really be together.

It may also be my presence, that I just got them at the beginning of June, and that i constantly make changes to the cage (bedding change, igloos changed to fleece forests, increase size of cage). So Altaria may just be stressed in general. They both allow me to pet them and touch and they always ask for food, but I think they don't trust me as much.

How do your guinea pigs interact? Can they be in the proximity of each other and not fight?

Image is the separated cage.

Bed.jpg
 

bpatters

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Do the hideys only have one door? If so, either throw them out, or cut another hole in them. Hideys with one door are an ideal set-up for your kind of problem to happen one pig traps another, and gets her face slashed for her efforts. I don't know what guineadad fleeces with hideys are, but if it's the ones with the pockets, those have more problems than just trapping pigs. We've recently had pigs with pretty severe respiratory infections from staying in those hideys too much.

You also need to let them alone to work out their dominance issues. They should only be separated if they're actually drawing blood, but the trapped-in-the-hidey situation doesn't count. If you've got two sources of pellets and hay, and two water bottles, that should be enough.

Also, you've got all the fleece forests down one side of the cage. If you'll stagger them in the cage, from one side to another, it will break up the lines of sight and give them some more places to hide.
 

aden_al

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Do the hideys only have one door? If so, either throw them out, or cut another hole in them. Hideys with one door are an ideal set-up for your kind of problem to happen one pig traps another, and gets her face slashed for her efforts. I don't know what guineadad fleeces with hideys are, but if it's the ones with the pockets, those have more problems than just trapping pigs. We've recently had pigs with pretty severe respiratory infections from staying in those hideys too much.

You also need to let them alone to work out their dominance issues. They should only be separated if they're actually drawing blood, but the trapped-in-the-hidey situation doesn't count. If you've got two sources of pellets and hay, and two water bottles, that should be enough.


Also, you've got all the fleece forests down one side of the cage. If you'll stagger them in the cage, from one side to another, it will break up the lines of sight and give them some more places to hide.

Hi. The hideys are just fleece forest; basically they are not really hideys. They can run anywhere. So, no, this time counts. Oktavia seemed really disturbed and affected afterwards. She didn't go to eat right away (which is VERY strange since they always go out for eating, but this time she stayed inside for a few minutes and then came out to eat). Now that I separated them, she's eating normally.

The fleece are with the pockets. I just inverted it, so they can't hide there anymore.

I am not sure what you mean by having the forest in one side. There are two of them (2 squares in the left side of the cage and 2 squares in the right side of the cage), one in each corner of the cage. Usually one guinea pig stays in one side and the other one in the other. The picture I posted is the currently divided cage in two parts (2 parts of 2 by 3): the right side are two green forests and the other side is a combination of green and blue.

Regards

two.jpg
 
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spy9doc

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I am not sure what you mean by having the forest in one side.

What she is referring to is that you have all your fleece forests on the same side of the cage. Stagger them so that one is on one side of the cage and the next is on the opposite side.......alternate them from side to side.
 

aden_al

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What she is referring to is that you have all your fleece forests on the same side of the cage. Stagger them so that one is on one side of the cage and the next is on the opposite side.......alternate them from side to side.

Ah thank you. I'm not sure how it would be different, but I guess it creates a better distribution. I'll change them this afternoon kind of like the forests to be along the short edge.

I also plan to remove the barriers in the cage today: I'll leave them out to play, rearrange and clean the cage, and then put them back.
 

bpatters

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Having them staggered breaks up the lines of sight, and increases the "out of sight, out of mind" factor. It doesn't keep them from wandering into each other, but they're not as immediately visible to each other as when they've got that big open space.
 

bpatters

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Good idea, @Candalala. If you do that, put a teeny drop of vanilla on each nose. That way, nobody smells "piggy" and it may get them over the introductions hump.
 

aden_al

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Having them staggered breaks up the lines of sight, and increases the "out of sight, out of mind" factor. It doesn't keep them from wandering into each other, but they're not as immediately visible to each other as when they've got that big open space.


How about now?

I prepared additional fleece forest so they would look hidden. After I removed the dividers I was able to see that Oktavia (the one that was hurt yesterday) is clearly dominant. In the past I could not really tell because she was very passive. Altaria flees now.
I left them outside and they seemed to start chasing each other a little, but nothing serious.

Right now, after some chasing inside the new cage, they are resting and hidden (there are no hideys or pockets, just fleece forests.

Cage.jpg
 

aden_al

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In theory, they are supposed to have bonded before. I got them both together, but somehow since they moved here they have stress. It's my fault for changing parts of the cage (first igloos, then no igloos but forests, then white bedding, then fleece bedding, then bigger house, etc.
 

bpatters

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It's not your fault at all. The dominance hierarchy often gets turned upside down when pigs move to a new cage.

And no, that's not what I was talking about with the fleece forests. I was suggesting one forest on one side, then one on the other side, then back to the first, then back to the second. You're still giving them a huge open area where they can always see each other every time they stick their heads out. It often helps to keep them from being able to do that.
 

aden_al

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Smileandnod

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A suggestion I would give that worked for my girls is increase the hay piles. I might be missing something in the picture, but it looks to me like you have only one hay bin? (Great job having extra food bowls and water bowls per pig!)

When some of my girls got a little territorial in the cage (it got rather ugly with 2 of them) after successful introductions, I put extra piles of hay, hay in cardboard tubes, hay in small long paper bags (you can get these free at most grocery stores if you ask because they are used when people buy wine bottles.) I would also add some treat hay, like oat hay and botanical hay, for a little extra motivation inside these little treasures. I put the piles of hay in separate parts of the cage, put the tube of hay in the middle and would hang the bags of hay midway by twisting them up under lofts or twisting through bars and clipping. You can even stuff tissue boxes with hay and clip them to the sides of the cage (just make sure there is no plastic, tape or glue).

It seems being happily busy working on eating hay and getting it out of places seemed to make them forget about the other pig.

Also nice work having a good size cage for the 2!
 
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aden_al

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A suggestion I would give that worked for my girls is increase the hay piles. I might be missing something in the picture, but it looks to me like you have only one hay bin? (Great job having extra food bowls and water bowls per pig!)

When some of my girls got a little territorial in the cage (it got rather ugly with 2 of them) after successful introductions, I put extra piles of hay, hay in cardboard tubes, hay in small long paper bags (you can get these free at most grocery stores if you ask because they are used when people buy wine bottles.) I would also add some treat hay, like oat hay and botanical hay, for a little extra motivation inside these little treasures. I put the piles of hay in separate parts of the cage, put the tube of hay in the middle and would hang the bags of hay midway by twisting them up under lofts or twisting through bars and clipping. You can even stuff tissue boxes with hay and clip them to the sides of the cage (just make sure there is no plastic, tape or glue).

It seems being happily busy working on eating hay and getting it out of places seemed to make them forget about the other pig.

Also nice work having a good size cage for the 2!

There's only one hay bin, but they don't seem to like it, so I may just remove it or do something.

However, I put the hay in the blue tube and the cliff bar box. I think I'll use your ideas to come up with more places for hay.
 
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