Fighting My guinea pigs are fighting - AGAIN.

[lanespiggies]

We had a moment about a month ago where my two boars were fighting intensely and I hade to separate them for a couple nights. I bought them two of everything. Two food dishes, water bottles, you name it. Since then, no fighting! Until now. I have them out for floor time and suddenly it was a fight! Yogi would try to hump Bear, and then Bear would run away and Yogi would chatter his teeth. And this has been continuing for a while since I got them out of their cage. They have had their moments of getting in each other’s face, but this seems rather aggressive. They used to never fight! Now it’s like they don’t even like each other anymore, only on rare occasions. They have a 30x60 cage and I can’t afford to get them a bigger one right now. I would hate to have to rehome these lil guys.

 

[lanespiggies]

UPDATE:

I just put them back in their cage and they’re sleeping like babies now. Ugh. I don’t get their on and off relationship

 

[spy9doc]

My first question would be "how old are your boys?" If they are going through puberty, this behavior is likely to continue for several months. My little boys are almost four months old and their hormones are driving them crazy! Sometimes it will be on the same day, and other times one of them is in overdrive and the other not. It is a virtual sea of testosterone that makes them both horny and aggressive. I remarked to my husband recently that if I had wanted cavies with raging hormones, I might have preferred sows in heat.

 

[lanespiggies]

My first question would be "how old are your boys?" If they are going through puberty, this behavior is likely to continue for several months. My little boys are almost four months old and their hormones are driving them crazy! Sometimes it will be on the same day, and other times one of them is in overdrive and the other not. It is a virtual sea of testosterone that makes them both horny and aggressive. I remarked to my husband recently that if I had wanted cavies with raging hormones, I might have preferred sows in heat.

Both of my boys are a year and 7 months. I figured puberty would be over by now?

 

[LittleSqueakers]

Both of my boys are a year and 7 months. I figured puberty would be over by now?

That does seem rather late to be having puberty-related aggression issues, although have heard that puberty can last up to age 2.

The fact that the behavior stopped and they relaxed once they were back in their cage suggests to me that it may have been something in the environment at floortime that was triggering them. I've seen this happen with lots of different kinds of social animals under different conditions; I've recently seen it with my current pair of pubescent boars. Is there anything new/different about floortime?