Behavior Can I or Should I get a friend for my boy?

[Either]

I have a male GP, Buddy, who we have had since he was about 10 weeks. He is probably still under a year old. I have been going back and forth about getting a companion for him. I have read and heard conflicting stories about boy pigs in a group. Here is some of what I've gathered :

All GPs need companions.
Boys will always fight.
Boys will fight unless they were put to gether as babies.
Boys can be taught to live together if you introduce them right
A fixed female is the only friend a boy pig can have.

I'm so confused. Do I get a companion for my guy or not? Should it be a boy or a girl? Should it be a baby/young pig or an adult?

I am going to get one of the C&C cages too so I can put a divider inbetween while they get used to each other ??

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[kourt1313]

Hi there. I know I'm new, but I see no one's responded yet so I'll help as much as I can. Don't get a female unless you plan on neutering your boy. A fixed female will probably be harder to find anyway as that surgery is more dangerous. If introduced properly, I don't see why two boys wouldn't get along. My Shelby is 10 weeks old and I introduce 1 year old Matisse to him on Monday. Yes they chatter their teeth, rumble, do all the typical dominance behaviors, but they aren't acting like wild men either and they aren't drawing blood, so this is a good sign. You'll go through this during the introductions with males or females. Since your boy is almost a year old, you could do younger as he may end up teaching the younger one or will just take to a younger pig better. As far as getting an older one or on the same age, I don't know so hopefully someone else can help you with that. Personally I wouldn't divide them while they get used to each other and with proper introductions you shouldn't need the divider. The only time you should need one is if they just absolutely aren't getting along, you would divid the cage so they could at least still communicate. I hope that helps and I hope someone else will come along with more knowledge.

 

[bpatters]

Of your list, items #1 and #4 are the only ones that are true -- the others are outright false. There are exceptions to #1 and #4 -- see the next paragraph.

Males can get along fine with other males, but there's no guarantee that two specific pigs of either sex will tolerate each other. Most will, after an introductory period, but occasionally you'll find a pig, male or female, that just won't get along with other pigs. You can search for the user "betty" on here and read about her Molly to learn about one of those.

Age, cage size, and individual personality determine whether or not pigs will get along, not gender. Adolescent pigs, especially males, can be obnoxious jerks, and need a lot of room so they can avoid each other when they want to.

Pairing a baby male with an older, past-adolescence males often works well -- nanny boars usually do a good job of raising babies. Pairing two teen-aged boars will get you lots of rumbling, squabbling, boar-stanking, etc, until the hormones calm down.

Read the articles at Guinea Pig Education, Care, Rescue and Adoption at Cavy Spirit, especially the one on Social Life. That site is geared toward people adopting from the CavySpirit rescue, but it's got a ton of good information on it.

If you're getting a C&C cage and another pig, be sure to make it a big cage -- see the Home page of this site for recommended sizes. And shorter/wider is better than longer/narrower when planning for boars. I don't know where you're planning on getting the cage, but they're not hard to make yourself if you can find the materials. That way you can make it any shape you want and have extra grids left over for sleeping shelves, etc.

 

[Inle_Rabbit]

You can get him a male friend! I have 4 boars all in the same cage all but 1 introduced as single adults over a year old and all living happily together. Also check out this page for more information on how to introduce guinea pigs correctly so they have the best chance of getting along. (Guinea Pigs Social Life) The biggest thing about boars is making sure the cage is big enough so they can get away from each other if they some space.

 

[SurfingPigs]

Congrats on deciding to get Buddy a friend. My only boar is named Buddy, too!

I would take the advice of those above me. I wanted to add that I wouldn't bother with putting them side by side in a divided cage first. I would do introductions according to the introduction section found halfway down the link that Inle_Rabbit provided. After intros, I would place them together in their cage and monitor them.