Behavior I need a Guinea pig behavorial expert

[Sekhmet]

This is a 13 min and 7 second long video with my newest Pig, Jessie and with Sonic. I haven't let them get together yet, which won't be for a good solid month.

I would love some feedback as far as compatibility with these 2 pigs in the near future.

[video=youtube_share;6lOB3NYwbso]
If anyone is wondering after this video I bought plexiglass to prevent the pigs from chewing on the bars, since I was clearly concern that they would chip their tooth in doing so.

 

[bpatters]

Sorry, I don't have time to watch a 13 minute video. What is in there that makes you think they can't get along?

And why are you waiting for a month to put them together?

 

[kp53179]

From what I can tell they should get along just fine. Jessie is just sniffing him out. Sonic is being calm while Jessie is touching him (sniffing) so that is good. They are acting like my 2 boars did and if they are anything like mine than they will mount each other quite often for the first week or so. It will calm down after awhile but I still see my boar mount the other one occasionally. One of them will be the more dominant and do the most mounting. Is Jessie a boy or a girl?

 

[trista81]

i skimmed through the video....they look fine to me, i don't see anyhting at all to be conserned about. good luck! and congrats on your new piggie!

 

[xXMaggieXx]

They look like they will be fine. There isnt really a way to be certain until you actually introduce them in neutral territory.

 

[jacqueline]

Is this after you quarantined the new pig?

there's no way to really predict how they'll be together until you put them together i think.

 

[Sekhmet]

What I'm concern is Sonic pulling on Jessies fur starting at 10:30. I assume Sonic is showing off his domination.

bpatters, I don't want to push the introduction. I'm in no rush. I want them both to get to know each other scent. I want things to run smooth. Either way I refuse to take back Jessie because hes now my responsibility until the day he goes to rainbow world. If for any reason they don't get along I will have to build a second story totally separating them both.

 

[Paula]

Has the new pig been quarantined? There is no way to know if they will or won't get along based on their reactions to each other through the grids, and in my experience might make a successful introduction more difficult. If they're slightly opposed or inclined to be aggressive, having them just out of range of each other might mean that by the time you actually get around to formal intros, they've already got murder on their little pig minds.

 

[MrWhistles]

Chewing on the bars won't harm your guinea at all. My guinea has chewed on his bars all his life and he hasn't has a single tooth problem.

The hair pulling/chewing i believe is called barbering. I'm not sure if there is a fix to that or if it is even a problem.

I also believe you should do neutral territory introduction.

 

[Leoseb27]

Chewing on the bars won't harm your guinea at all. My guinea has chewed on his bars all his life and he hasn't has a single tooth problem.

The hair pulling/chewing i believe is called barbering. I'm not sure if there is a fix to that or if it is even a problem.

I also believe you should do neutral territory introduction.

Totally agree n neutral territory introduction!

 

[bpatters]

I wouldn't worry about the barbering.

Chewing on the bars won't harm your guinea at all.

Unless the pig breaks a tooth, which is certainly possible, whether @MrWhistles has seen it or not.

 

[littlepigfriend]

the hair pulling thing is called barbering ususally one or two pigs have that role in the pod of pigs there job is to keep the other piggies groomed so not only is your piggie grooming the other but in a way welcoming him or her to his family you did the right thing by adopting him or her a new friend because piggies are social creatures even if they have a people as there friend they still need a piggie friend around sometime sintroduction do take awhile depending on the sex age or trying to get through the whole dominance thing if it doesnt work the first time keep trying dont give up make sure you put them in a nutruel territory where their scents are not so no one feels threatend they have heighrtend sences compared to humans make sure after u handle one u wash your hands before handling the second one so u dont smell like the other piggie either if they srt to fight put them back into their individual cages make sure you have a piggie first aid kit handy as well if something gets serious then treat your piggie depending on the level of injury if it gets bad bring to vet and get advice from the vet you can treat small scratches with ointments and things to ensure there are no infections and things make sure that everything in your kit is piggie safe u can ask an exotics vet what to get and how to handle evrything as well if u dont get your answer on here

 

[bpatters]

@littlepigfriend, your posts will be much easier to read if you'll break them into sentences and use punctuation. Thanks!

 

[littlepigfriend]

sorry i had my daughter on my lap trying to type and so i had to block her

 

[littlepigfriend]

i have to ask has anyone heard the infamous piggie bird chirp?:eye-poppi

 

[MrWhistles]

i have to ask has anyone heard the infamous piggie bird chirp?:eye-poppi

Yes. I woke up in the middle of the night last night to go potty and heard Mr. Whistles chirping.
Thankfully my iPhone decided to cooperate and I was able to sneak over to his cage/record it. Just trying to find a place to send the voice recording to make it available to everyone online to hear.

I'm not sure on what made him chirp. He was sitting inside his fleece forest and had his nose high up in the air.

 

[Jenni_Feathers]

Chewing on the bars won't harm your guinea at all.

You might want to be more careful about your piggy chewing on the bars. I had a pig break his top teeth from chewing on the bars of his travel carrier while I was cleaning his cage. Granted he wasn't just chewing, he was yanking on the door trying to open it, but still its definitely possible. And trust me, its not fun to go through for human, or pig. I was lucky, he teeth grew back right, but my vet had said it was possible that if they hadn't lined up and wore properly he would have had to have dental trims regularly for the rest of his life.

And to the OP. If it was me, I would just stop the split cage thing, and do a neutral territory intro now, to prevent any unnecessary tension from building before the real into. A good first impression so to speak.

 

[MrWhistles]

You might want to be more careful about your piggy chewing on the bars. I had a pig break his top teeth from chewing on the bars of his travel carrier while I was cleaning his cage. Granted he wasn't just chewing, he was yanking on the door trying to open it, but still its definitely possible. And trust me, its not fun to go through for human, or pig. I was lucky, he teeth grew back right, but my vet had said it was possible that if they hadn't lined up and wore properly he would have had to have dental trims regularly for the rest of his life.

It is small little nips like the pig is doing in the OPs video.
And he only chews them in the morning when he is going to get his freshies. I do my best to give him a lettuce leaf to munch on while I chopping the rest of his freshies.

 

[Paula]

I was lucky, he teeth grew back right, but my vet had said it was possible that if they hadn't lined up and wore properly he would have had to have dental trims regularly for the rest of his life.

That's a misleading comment, at best. A pig's teeth either align properly, or they don't - and broken teeth will grow back in the same alignment. It's not like there was a chance they wouldn't grow back properly due to the break - if they hadn't been aligned properly in the first place, they wouldn't grow back in alignment, hence, he'd have needed dental trims for the rest of his life. If they were aligned properly, they would of course grow back in the same alignment. In other words, needing regular dental trims due to a misaligned jaw hasn't anything at all to do with the break and everything to do with whether a pig's teeth are aligned properly in the first place.

Broken teeth tend to grow back easily and quickly - unless there's an underlying issue, which could cause the pig's teeth to be broken more easily than normal, anyway. The bigger issue with bar chewing (although a long shot) is the potential to do harm to the jaw itself - my vet clinic had a pig come in last year with a fractured jaw because the poor creature's teeth got stuck in the bars of his cage and he thrashed so wildly trying to get loose that it broke his jaw. Ultimately, he was euthanized because there was so little hope of recovery and nothing they tried proved to be successful for one reason or another.

 

[CavyMama]

i have to ask has anyone heard the infamous piggie bird chirp?:eye-poppi

Only one of my pigs has ever chirped. He was the first pig I ever had and he lived to be a month short of 6 years. I was watching the Puppy Bowl one year and since it had been an unseasonably warm January, I had the window open. When I heard the chirping, I figured it was a bird outside. But it persisted. So I went over by the cages and listened and narrowed it down to one pig. It was really something to hear.