I KNOW THIS POST IS LONG BUT PLEASE HELP ME I'M WORRIED ABOUT MY BABIES
I have had sisters Cora and Olympia for a little over 2 years, and they are almost 3 years old. Olympia began acting strange around 2-3 weeks ago, and it seemed like dominance behavior. She was rumblestrutting, chattering her teeth, and holding her head high. She would sometimes charge at Cora which worried me, but I was told that this was fine as long as there was no blood. Although this appeared to be pretty obvious dominance behavior, everything I read said that it's supposed to happen when they are young or newly introduced. Olympia and Cora have been together since birth and have never seemed to show dominance behavior before (although I didn't know much about guinea pigs when I got them so I might have not recognized it). What concerned me the most is that Cora would shriek like I've never heard before. This would happen multiple times a day, and when I held her she seemed absolutely terrified.
Since the dominance process is not supposed to be disturbed, I didn't separate them. Around a week and a half after the behavior started I went home from college, so although there was a change in their environment, we move back and forth 5-10 times a year and they've never had any issue with the transition. I've been home for almost a week now and have noticed that Cora doesn't shriek as much. I figured the process was done but today I saw a bunch of blood for the first time. I was cleaning under their little hideout igloos and noticed a few stains.
What is happening? What do I do? Is it time to separate them? They've always gotten along and this breaks my heart I'm really worried
I have had sisters Cora and Olympia for a little over 2 years, and they are almost 3 years old. Olympia began acting strange around 2-3 weeks ago, and it seemed like dominance behavior. She was rumblestrutting, chattering her teeth, and holding her head high. She would sometimes charge at Cora which worried me, but I was told that this was fine as long as there was no blood. Although this appeared to be pretty obvious dominance behavior, everything I read said that it's supposed to happen when they are young or newly introduced. Olympia and Cora have been together since birth and have never seemed to show dominance behavior before (although I didn't know much about guinea pigs when I got them so I might have not recognized it). What concerned me the most is that Cora would shriek like I've never heard before. This would happen multiple times a day, and when I held her she seemed absolutely terrified.
Since the dominance process is not supposed to be disturbed, I didn't separate them. Around a week and a half after the behavior started I went home from college, so although there was a change in their environment, we move back and forth 5-10 times a year and they've never had any issue with the transition. I've been home for almost a week now and have noticed that Cora doesn't shriek as much. I figured the process was done but today I saw a bunch of blood for the first time. I was cleaning under their little hideout igloos and noticed a few stains.
What is happening? What do I do? Is it time to separate them? They've always gotten along and this breaks my heart I'm really worried