Aggression My youngest male pig started biting my oldest(alpha) male all over his body

[TaylorJ]

Hello, I have 3 male guinea pigs, 2 of which have been together for a year and a half, they were introduced when the one was about 6 months and the other 2 months (not completely sure just guessing about age). My older one(pandemic) immediately became alpha over the younger one( apocalypse) with apocalypse not putting up a fight at all. Those two have been bonded ever since and have always gotten along perfectly. A couple months ago we decided to get another pig who was about 3 months old and after he( plague)was out of quarantine the introduction went well and they all got along just fine. For the past week plague has been trying to get dominance which I thought would just blow over and pandemic would remain alpha. But today I was doing their normal routine of food, water etc and plague was trying to do dominance on apocalypse and apocalypse wasn’t having it and seemed to be really annoyed and kept trying to get away from plague. Then out of nowhere plague started biting pandemic from behind and pandemic squealed and started chattering and apocalypse went and stood by pandemic. I checked pandemic and saw that he had bite marks all over his behind ( they all looked very fresh) and he was in pain. I separated plague into another cage. Why would plague just start biting pandemic? I’m not sure what to do about this. They are in a large c&c cage.

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

The problem is that you have 3 males. 3 males virtually NEVER works, and when it does it's almost always 3 older, very laid back pigs. You may very well have destroyed the bond that the first two pigs had, and you may now even have three pigs that will never get along with each other again.

The best advice I can give you is to either rehome plague, or build a 2nd large cage and get him a completely new buddy.

After plague is separated, try introducing apocalypse and pandemic again in a neutral space to see if they'll indeed tolerate each other again.

 

[bpatters]

Ditto @Guinea Pig Papa. Three males in a cage is almost guaranteed to fail, and even more so when you add one coming into puberty to an established pair. To anyone else reading this who may be thinking about it, just. don't. do. it.

 

[TaylorJ]

Pandemic and apocalypse never stopped getting along. They are still bonded. Didn’t know that 3 males won’t get along. Thank you for the information. Pandemic and apocalypse seem much happier without plague in the cage. They are still getting along perfectly like always

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Pandemic and apocalypse never stopped getting along. They are still bonded. Didn’t know that 3 males won’t get along. Thank you for the information. Pandemic and apocalypse seem much happier without plague in the cage. They are still getting along perfectly like always

That's good, then you may have dodged a bullet with them. Do try and get Plague a buddy as soon as you can, though. He IS entering puberty, though, so whatever you do in the buddy situation you must expect squabbles and dominance issues. It just is what it is.