Aggressive Mating-type Behavior

[Duff Man]

Hi everybody, many thanks to the site admins/mods for the Guinea Pig venue.

My family is pretty new to Guinea Pigs. We've had a boy guinea pig for a few weeks and we fell in love with him. We loved him so much, in fact, that we purchased a girl guinea pig and a significantly bigger cage. We absolutely adore the new girl too - she's very sweet. Unfortunately with the two of them together, there are some pretty big, new behavioral problems; he's aggressively trying to mate with her, and she wants absolutely nothing to do with it.

He continually purrs and squeaks as if it's going to change her mind. She urinates on his face regularly, and I think she might even be biting him. We believe we may've picked him up when he was 'in the mood' when he's bitten/nibbled us as well. I think that he's probably driving her nuts and he appears to be absolutely insanely in lust unlike anything I've ever seen. It seems unhealthy for both of them and so far it appears to not be letting up.

At this point we're looking for advice on best practice. We're also wondering, is this normal behavior for a male/female pair? Does it ever calm down on its own? Is there anything we can do? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[piggyfan]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Can I first ask you if the boy is neutered or if the girl is spayed?

 

[Duff Man]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Can I first ask you if the boy is neutered or if the girl is spayed?

Thanks for the welcome! Neither have been fixed yet.

 

[piggyfan]

Right. If you put a male and female together then the male will continue to mate with the female. As you can imagine this is a very unhappy life for her. It is only advised to put a male with a female if he has been neutered. Please seperate them right away. I really hope she is not pregnant but sadly it is very likely that she is.

 

[Duff Man]

Ok, thank you very much for the heads up. Luckily I saved the previous cage, so I was able to separate them immediately after reading your post. I'll have to get him to the vet asap to be fixed.

It sounds like you believe a pregnancy to be bad - can you tell me more about why you're hoping she's not?

 

[piggyfan]

Sure I can. Well I do not know where you are from but in England there are so many unwanted guinea pigs out there and rescues are full. The forum is pro rescue and encourages members to adopt if they wish to have more guinea pigs.

Pregnancy in guinea pigs is sadly very dangerous with one in five resulting in death. I will find you a link to explain more. Would you mind putting the country you are from as it will help people with any advice they have?

 

[piggyfan]

This thread will give you a lot more information,
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/pregnancy-guide.109375/

 

[Wiebke]

Ok, thank you very much for the heads up. Luckily I saved the previous cage, so I was able to separate them immediately after reading your post. I'll have to get him to the vet asap to be fixed.

It sounds like you believe a pregnancy to be bad - can you tell me more about why you're hoping she's not?

Hi and welcome!

Please be aware that we do not support intentional breeding on this forum. https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/pages/terms-and-rules/

Guinea pigs have the longest pregnancy of all rodents, with comparatively few large pups. About every fifth pregnancy goes wrong for either mum, babies or both - you can see the heartbreak this causes in far too many threads in our pregnancy section, which we are running for members who find themselves with unplanned pregnancies either through mis-sexing, misinformation or lack of knowledge.

Sows come into season within hours of giving birth, and babies start making babies/getting pregnant basically as soon as they are weaned. If you do not sex correctly and separate promptly, you will be wading in a mass of inbred guinea pigs very quickly. Sadly, this happens not at all rarely and we see the sorry results in large rescue actions.
Several of my guinea pigs have come from uncontrolled breeding situations and they will carry the genetic and behavioural wounds for as long as they live - which can involve a shortened lifespan, amongst other problems. The little white abi girl in my avatar picture on the left for instance died from congenital sudden acute heart failure only days after her second birthday like so many of her generation from that large rescue.
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/pregnancy-guide.109375/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/pregnancy-and-nursing-diet.109377/

Please separate your piggies immediately and have the boy neutered; he is 100% safe to join his lady after a 6 weeks post operation wait. I have the unplanned daughter of a supposedly safe over 5 weeks post op boar living with me, just to prove that point. Neutering is the only way that your boy will be able to live with your girl long term. Make sure that you either find a general vet with lots of experience in guinea pig neutering or an exotics vet with good practice in operating on small furries in order to minimise the otherwise still fairly common risk of especially post op complications like abscesses.
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/guinea-pig-castration-explained.70606/
UK: https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/pages/guinea-pig-vet-locator/
other countries: http://www.guinealynx.info/cabinet/index.php/Veterinarians

Hopefully, from your girl's behaviour she is not anywhere near her season and has escaped unscathed. Please open a thread in our pregnancy section, as you will have to wait for a fair number of weeks to see whether there will be babies or not, and I guess that you are interested in giving her all the support you can.

We are prepared to talk you through preparing for a neutering operation, help you with post op care and support you and your girl during her pregnancy watch. We will also help you with bonding when your boy is ready for that. I have currently four neutered boars, each of them living with 2-6 sows and have done dozens of cross gender bondings over the years. We are not prepared to help with intentional breeding.

It would be very helpful for us if you please added your country, state or (for the UK) your county or city to your details by clicking on your username on the top bar, then go to personal details and scroll down to location. This will help us to adapt any advice and recommendations to what is possible and available to you straight away. In the same section you can also upload your avatar picture.

 

[Freela]

The others have covered the reasons against breeding pretty thoroughly. Why put yourself in that situation deliberately, especially when overpopulation is a problem and you are risking the life/health of your female? My advice would be to find a good exotics vet with guinea pig experience- you will want to have one on hand for neutering, and also to help you should your girl be pregnant and experience problems with her pregnancy and birth.