Adopting Need help finding a friend for my recently single male piggy

[katlynpwh]

I used to have two male pigs but sadly one died when a husky got into his cage. The cage is now out of reach on a desk while my other boy has a fractured scapula and is recovering. I want to find a new cagemate for him but it's hard to find a single boar in my area except on kijiji. This made me think, do I NEED to get him a male? would getting a female be any different if I got him neutered? I have a 2x4 cage, which I guess is a little small for boars, and when there were two there was a lot of rumbling, chattering, and such. There was even an incident when I put them in a carrier and the one that's alive got violent (I have two carriers now). So, with the slightly smaller setup and me willing to neuter my male, could a female cagemate be a better option than a male?

 

[Soecara]

If you get your male neutered then there is no reason why he couldn't have a female cage mate (at least 3 weeks post neuter to allow residual sperm to die off).

While a female plus male introduction is not a guaranteed compatible pairing it is a less potentially risky introduction then two adult boars. However that really depends on the personalities of the guinea pigs involved.

 

[spy9doc]

Only you know the personality of the remaining cavy. I previously had a neutered male/intact female pairing and they were just the sweetest couple you could ask for. The only issue was that when Maya would go into heat, Chester was totally mystified as to what all the fuss was about. He had been neutered since he was five months old and had no idea that his penis was good for anything other than a water spout. She would hump him as if to say, "come on Chester........I'll show you what to do".

He initially thought that it was a play for dominance, but finally came to realize that this was different. The longer they lived together, the more she calmed down. I even observed him trolling her a couple of times. He had previously lived with his brother who was the more dominant, and the dynamics were quite different with Maya.

Neutering is really quite safe when done by a cavy-savvy Vet. All of my boars have been neutered and there has never been an issue. It sounds as though you have some time to sort this out while your boy is healing.

 

[ecowoman]

If you get your male neutered then there is no reason why he couldn't have a female cage mate (at least 3 weeks post neuter to allow residual sperm to die off).

While a female plus male introduction is not a guaranteed compatible pairing it is a less potentially risky introduction then two adult boars. However that really depends on the personalities of the guinea pigs involved.

I am just curious as to what personalities might not make good cage mates. I have an almost 2 yr old male that lost his cage mate last month. I found a 1.5 yr old male in the area but he has not been with other males. My current pig was dominant to the other but not aggressive. thank you

 

[Soecara]

Generally speaking it doesn't work out well if you try and pair two dominant and stubborn boars. If neither one will back down and both are determined to be the boss it is likely to end in bloodshed. These personality traits aren't something you can know about a new boar without first trying him with other guinea pigs, but you should be able to have a good sense of if your current guinea pig matches this.

If your current guinea pig matches this personality type watch them during introductions for signs such as how they respond to a head raising challenge, how they respond to being mounted, who is mounting who. My biggest warning before they broke into a flying ball when failing to introduce two boars who turned out to be stubborn and dominant was they would both insist on mounting the other, resulting in them both running in a circle trying to get on each others bottoms for pretty much 10 minutes straight, when one would get caught he would take a nip at the other and the circle would restart.