Aggression Aggressive between boars

[meandmypiggies1]

Okay, so I have had my guinea pigs for about 5 months now. Their names are Milo, and Pippin. They have lived together since they were a couple weeks old. I adopted them from a older lady on craigslist when she no longer wanted them. I got them a bigger cage, 47" by 24" Midwest Guinea Habitat. But after a couple months they started getting into mini fights. After a while, I separated them for now almost 3 weeks, because I neutered one to see if possibly he would stop being aggressive. Which I know it usually doesn't help, but he also had a medical condition and needed to be neutered anyway. But 2 weeks after the of Milo's surgery he and Pippin would chatter, squeak, and rumblestrutt at each other, even between bars. I was wondering if any of you have experienced this and how you handled it. I have heard of bathing them together, and sometimes it helps. I have done some meetings in their 5ft long playpen, at first they get along, but after a while they start the rumblestrutting again. I'm worried to keep them together when I'm not standing above them and on guard. Thank you!

 

[CavyTV]

Neutering WON'T change their behavior. Rumble-strutting, chattering, squeaking, mounting, chasing, nipping - This is all normal piggie behavior. Only separate when blood is drawn. I know, it's kind of scary at first to see them displaying those behaviors, but really, that's just what guinea pigs do. The fact that you keep separating them is not helping. When guinea pigs are introduced, then separated, then introduced again and so on, it causes stress. It's best to just leave them together in the cage and let them have at it. If you really want to supervise them- go ahead, just don't separate. Also, if they are around 6 months-1 year, they may just be going through puberty. Usually, this period is when a guinea pig will act more dominant because of their hormones. A submissive pig might even try to challenge the boss pig during this period. Like I said, just leave them be. Only separate when blood is drawn.

Here is a link that could be useful:
http://www.cavyspirit.com/sociallife.htm

Best of luck!

 

[bpatters]

Your cage isn't nearly large enough for two boars. You need at least 10 square feet for boars at the bare MINIMUM, and you don't even have eight.

Letting them meet and then separating them is definitely not recommended. Guinea pigs are wired to establish dominance when they meet another pig, and they try to do so EVERY time they meet. So you put them together, they start the dominance bit, and then you separate them again. So the next time they meet, they have to start all over again. It's stressful for the pig, and will NOT increase the chances of them ever being able to live together.

If you can significantly enlarge your cage, you could try reintroducing them again. If not, I'd get another cage and wait until both are well out of puberty before trying again.

Here's the bible on guinea pig introductions: http://guinea-pigs.livejournal.com/3002707.html.

 

[meandmypiggies1]

I have 2 cages, one is 37 inches long, and the other is 47 inches, I could possibly see if I could try to change it somehow and put those both together, so that way their cage is larger. Do you think if I were to have them in a large playpen all day tomorrow, they could possibly work it out? I guess it is possible they are going through puberty as they just turned a year old last week. I just also wanted to say about the neutering, was Milo had a medicinal condition that I had to neuter him, it wasn't really done to help with aggression. Thank you for replying!

 

[bpatters]

How wide are the cages?

And two cages put together don't really work well with boars, because they can get in each other's faces while going from one to another. They need wide, flat spaces to run around in.

 

[meandmypiggies1]

The bigger one is 24 inches wide and the smaller one is 22 inches wide. The way I'm thinking of putting it, there would be no ramps, it just would be flat straight way into to the other cage, as if it was just one big cage. Sorry I don't know if that makes sense.

 

[meandmypiggies1]

Update:
I put them together in their playpen since this morning at 7:30am. Now its 11:10am, and so far they haven't fought. They have been mounting each other for dominance, and there has been rumblestrutting and chattering, but they have been doing well. Hopefully by the end of the day they can live together again.

 

[lisa325]

I believe you're going to see the dominance behavior at intervals throughout their lives, it's just what piggies do. My two cohabit peacefully most of the time. My bigger pig seems to wanna play tough guy about once a month (maybe it has something to do with the cycles of the moon ), and has in fact just nailed my smaller pig with a big load of horrible boar glue for the second time in as many months. >(

 

[tpage001]

My two boars were recently reintroduced and they rumble strut and chatter at each other frequently throughout the day. I followed [MENTION=13820]bpatters[/MENTION] advise when I reintroduced them and it really does work if you can give them a large space with two of everything. A lot of behaviors that are for dominance are actually quite normal, the only thing to watch out for is obviously fighting with the intent to injure or kill each other.