Behavior Guinea pig suddenly screaming/squealing

[aden_al]

Hi,

**By screaming, I mean the it is a very similar sound to the one they make they are hungry.

The guinea pigs and I (two females) have been hanging out a lot more and they kind of seem to like me more. The dominant (Altaria) is more skittish and she doesn't like being touched, but lately she's let me brush her hair and she really enjoys it. I also noticed that they tolerate each other more (they have a 2 by 6 and the extremes are covered in fleece forests, so there are 4 squares; 2 in each corner), and they started sleeping on the same side, and the dominant does not attack Oktavia (the submissive).

Having said this, I was changing one bottle while Oktavia (submissive) was eating hay. Then Oktavia got nervous and got inside the forest (Altaria was on the other side), and then she started screaming. I tried to check on her but she moved and then she kept eating.

Then, they played on the ground, and they had fun. I put them back.

After a while, Altaria was in the middle of the cage (there's a sort of fleece cover in the middle -see picture-where they go hanging out and eat hay), and suddenly she started screaming/squealing a lot. I got scared and approached her and she didn't stop completely. I managed to grab her (and kept screaming, but it's normal, she doesn't like being picked up) and started touching all of her body and checking her mouth, ears, feet, etc. with the cellphone light to the best of my ability. I looked to at her eyes and nothing was off, everything look normal. I didn't inspect her genitals and I saw her feet but not with a lot of ease because she was moving. I put her back and she seems to be fine. I also gave them food afterwards.

Is this normal?

**The cage is always clean.

**She also wasn't being attacked by Altaria, Altaria was on the other looking confused.

 

[LittleSqueakers]

Flower woke me up once or twice in the night by screaming when she was still relatively new in my home. Both times I bolted out of bed in a panic, turned on the light, and looked into the pigpen, and she was just standing there in no apparent distress. My first thought when I heard the screams was that Tribble might be attacking her, but Tribble was lying down in a hidey and was looking out at us with half-shut eyes and a grumpy expression like he'd just been woken up by all the commotion. Like you did, I caught the screamer, gave her a quick check-over to look for any possible injuries and found nothing. She only ever did this once or twice. I never was able to find an exact cause. I think they just get excited or weirded-out sometimes...

 

[bunnyfunny]

I think I might agree with LittleSqueakers, I'm not expert or whatsoever, I maybe wrong but based on reading a lot of stuff and encounter the guinea pig itself, that squealing sound can be related to happy time or I can't wait for the mealtime. This list of sound meaning might be helpful to understand. All in all, I think as the time goes by, you will actually understand a bit the meaning of the sound.

 

[MerryFriarTuck]

This is great list of piggy sounds and meanings too--- you can even listen to recordings of all of them! https://www.guineapigmanual.com/guinea-pig-sounds/

 

[rosspiggys]

We get this all the time. Sometimes it seems to be over food, other times they are no where near each other. I am beginning to think they do it for grins and giggles and to see if they can make the large bipeds come running.

 

[AnitaJohnson]

Hello, Im new here in this forum but I can help with my long experience that I have with my guinea pigs, i think those sounds are totally fine but I cannot tell what the raison exactly, I already write an long post about those sounds and I recorded them, you can check them and ask me back here which one is the exact sound https://aboutguineapig.com/how-to-minimize-guinea-pigs-noise-at-night/ I can help.

 

[ava121]

Your work is just excellent. I really love your work and thanks for sharing these resources.

 

[CavyMama]

Ava, this post is from 4 months ago. Also, I have removed your link to chinchilla wheels since it has nothing to do with the topic.