2 Boars and 1 Sow - advice?

[Peanut's Dad]

Hi, this is my first post.

We have 2 boars and 1 sow. I know this is not a great configuration, but they were born as a litter in our house. Since they were a few weeks old we have had the sow separated. They are now about 5 months old. We recently had her spayed, and she seems to be doing fine.

Now we are planning to reintroduce her to the boys. We put her in their cage for a few minutes today. The boys were chasing her and she was running! I felt sorry for her and separated her.

My question: is there any advice can you offer us? Must we get rid of one of the boys? Our family wants them to stay together if possible. Just cross our fingers and hope they all get along? Does anyone else have any experience with this type of arrangement?

By the way all seem healthy and happy. They come right up to us when we enter the room. Our vet said our two boars were "exquisite"!

 

[MetallichicA]

I have heard that you can't have more than one boar per sow, but I don't know from experience. Why would you need to get rid of one of the boys, though? Just keep him in a separate cage, or keep them in a large cage with just a separator between them if that works.

 

[ice_on_fire]

well.. i don't know about 2 boars with 1 sow but i do have 1 boar and a sow together.. the boar is desexed but when i first put them two together he was still trying to pounce on my little girl.. but he have stopped doing that now..!! thank god.. them two get very good together now

 

[Treen]

Generally the rule is one boar to multiple females - multiple males with one or more females rarely work. The males compete for the female(s), and when male guinea pigs compete, it can easily end up with serious infection and injury, and even death. If you have two males competing to mate with one female, that is extremely likely to end in tears.

I have heard of a couple of cases where people have a couple of males with a several females, but both these people have free range set ups and having a full room to roam around in and be able to get away from each other is what makes the difference. I've never heard of it working in a cage set up, even a large cage.

Personally (especially having see how quickly males can go from being best buddies to mortal enemies when there are females around - and how badly they can injure each other within seconds) I wouldn't risk it. I don't see why you'd have to 'get rid' of one of the boars though. As MetallichicA said, you could house one side by side the pair that you choose to live together - it would still provide companionship for teh one living alone. If the males get along now, you could kep them together and get a male or female for your spayed female. If you pair up one of them with the female you could get another boar for the lone male, or have him neutered and get him a female friend. That way you get to keep all your beloved pigs, and everyone has a friend.

If you haven't already, read this page https://www.cavyspirit.com/sociallife.htm for more information. I'd definitely recommend against even trying the three together. It could work for a few days, but it's almost certain to not workl out in teh long run and one or both of your boars will pay the price.

 

[Peanut's Dad]

Thanks for the great advice everyone. We don't actually know that they will fight but it seems like a probability based on what everyone says. We want to keep them together and we think we've come up with an idea. We have a 2x5 C&C cage and we though about just adding a wall, dividing it into two sections, either 2x4 + 2x1 or 2x3 + 2x2. Then we would just keep one of the piggies in the small section. That way they would be separated but would still sort of be in the same cage. What do you think? The only down side is that there is less area for them, but we can't go bigger...we don't have any more space available.

Thanks again for your ideas!

 

[Treen]

2x3 + 2x2 would be better if you did that - 2x1 is far too small a space for one pig to live in. I'd say dividing the cage was certainly a better alternative to giving one away, And you can compensate for the reduced cage size with plenty of floor time every day.

If you do plan to get the one on its own a buddy at some point, you could always build upwards and have another 2x5 on top. Same amount of floor space, but more area to house pigs!

 

[Peanut's Dad]

Thanks Treen. We are feeling a lot of anguish over what to do. We don't want to get rid of even one pig, but we don't want a bigger cage either, and we hate the fact that our 2x5 C&C is going to get cut in half, making it not really big enough for any of our three pigs.

I am going to try the 2x2 + 2x3 configuration for a little while and see how it works, but I do have some questions about this. I tried it last night briefly and the pigs that were separated were gnawing on the cage bars quite a bit. Is that healthy? I need to make separate cloroplast containers for each side. Do you let the cloroplast go all the way down to the ground, or do you have a short wall in between them?

Finally, some people say tha it is bad for the pigs to walk on newspaper. Do you know if this is true? I always put regular black and white newspaper under my bedding. This seems to make it easier to clean up. Is there any common knowledge to suggest whether or not this is bad for the pigs?

 

[loves2travel]

as long as it is only black and white it is fine. but no colored pages!

 

[Peanut's Dad]

Okay, I know you all think I am probably crazy, but I am just trying to get this right. I split my 2x5 into a 2x3 + 2x2 and put 1 boar in each side (they share a wall) and the spayed sow in with the male in the 2x3. It seems like maybe there is just enough space for them all.

Anyway, we are feeling a little sad for the fellow that is getting left out. Short of getting another GP (we may end up doing this eventually) is it okay to switch them like once every couple of weeks so the one boy isn't by himself all the time? I have no idea, but I doubt these critters are monogamous in the wild...

I read the stuff about social ordering and all, but I thought if we just didn't do it that often, maybe it would still be okay. Any ideas about that?

 

[loves2travel]

i think it would be ok to switch the boars every day in fact. someone else on our forum did this. she had three boars, but they didnt all get along. she divided the cage and one day the friendly one would be on the right side, the other on the left. she said it worked really well for her.

 

[Treen]

Guinea pigs do like routine and stability - they like it when they know exactly what a day holds. Depending on the pigs, it may be stressful for the males to have their female friend taken away and added on a regular basis when on her return she'll smell of another boar who of course will be his competition.

Companionship through a dividing wall is still really good, and they may all be happier in the long run if ther day to day lives are more stable and not constantly changing. It's frustrating for males to be able to smell a female and not be able to get to her, but if it's a female they regard as their own it could be stressful for them to sens they have competition and that it's right by them.

It depends on the pigs - some may adapt, but in the long run I'd definitely work on getting the lone pig a buddy as that's the absolute best solution.