Answers on Guinea Pig Herds!!

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

I want to build a herd for my guinea pigs! I received a guinea pig male who is around 3 years old from someone who's family was neglecting it and needed to rehome him! I also then recently bought 4 baby guinea pigs from an animal swap to save them from being in the heat all day! I got them from 2 different breeders all babies. 2 tri color guinea pigs a male and a female about 4-6 sweeks they said and from the second breeder another baby boy and girl who maybe 4 weeks Abyssinian guinea pigs . would i be able to put them all together in a herd? For the time being I have the boys in a cage (just the babies) in another the 2 girls . i was hoping to put them all together ? I sae on a video u can put 2 males and 2 females together as a type of herd 7 females and a male 2 males (sometimes) and a typical female and male. Would i be about to put 3 boys and the 2 girls together? Or would i have to get another guinea pig for the 3 boy ? So they can all have a partner? Or what other ways can i herd them together ? NEED ANSWERS FAST PLEASE!

Jomundy · Sep 8, 2018

If the males are not neutered I would not put them anywhere near the females . They can start having baby's from 3 weeks old . I would suggest neutering the males . And your be lucky if your females are not already pregnant if they have come with males .
And 3 boars(males) rarely get on together . Someone will be along soon that will know how to guide u hear

Qualcast&Flymo · Sep 8, 2018

Hello and

To answer your main question simply, you could not build a single herd with your current mix of males and females. If you put more than one male with or near females, they will most likely fight, possibly to the death. (One or two members on here have managed it, but only because the males were siblings born to sows they already had.)
You could neuter the males and pair two of them with a sow. Then you would need to find another sow for the third male also. Please don't put the 2 sows with any of the boars until they have been neutered and waited six weeks. Otherwise the sows will inevitably become pregnant, and they are awfully young to be having babies, being little more than babies themselves right now.

PS Were the babies together at the breeders until you got them? I hope the answer is 'no' as otherwise they may already be pregnant ...

Livia Rabideau · Sep 8, 2018

I agree with the statement above! Hopefully they aren't pregnant.

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

I haven't I said the 2 females were together but thank you. What if I had more females?

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

What if i get all 3 males neutered ? Someone said if you neutered all but one that one,would be the dominate and the others would not try and fight it.

Qualcast&Flymo · Sep 8, 2018

Lilguinea112816 said:
I haven't I said the 2 females were together but thank you. What if I had more females?

In your first post you mentioned that the two females are now together in one cage, which is good, but I was wondering about how they were housed at the breeders as you said you got a male and a female from each breeder.
If you got more females, the same things still apply about boars fighting when two or more are kept with females. You would have to have 3 mini herds, each with one of your present boars (neutered) and one or more females.

Neutering boars only stops them having babies, it doesn't change any other aspect of their behaviour. Whoever said neutered boars wouldn't try to fight a non-neutered boar was badly mistaken.

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

The boys and girls were seperate in boxs /crates.

Qualcast&Flymo said:
Hello and

To answer your main question simply, you could not build a single herd with your current mix of males and females. If you put more than one male with or near females, they will most likely fight, possibly to the death. (One or two members on here have managed it, but only because the males were siblings born to sows they already had.)
You could neuter the males and pair two of them with a sow. Then you would need to find another sow for the third male also. Please don't put the 2 sows with any of the boars until they have been neutered and waited six weeks. Otherwise the sows will inevitably become pregnant, and they are awfully young to be having babies, being little more than babies themselves right now.

PS Were the babies together at the breeders until you got them? I hope the answer is 'no' as otherwise they may already be pregnant ...

Qualcast&Flymo · Sep 8, 2018

Lilguinea112816 said:
The boys and girls were seperate in boxs /crates.

Hopefully the sows are not aready pregnant then, so long as the breeders separated the sexes early enough. Have you double checked the genders? Some breeeders especially backyard breeders can be not very good at correctly identifying gender, it can be very difficult when they are very small.

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

What are other ways to have herds?

Lilguinea112816 · Sep 8, 2018

Yes i checked their are 2 females and 2 males

Qualcast&Flymo said:
Hopefully the sows are not aready pregnant then, so long as the breeders separated the sexes early enough. Have you double checked the genders? Some breeeders especially backyard breeders can be not very good at correctly identifying gender, it can be very difficult when they are very small.

HeatherRose · Sep 8, 2018

Basically, your options are two males together and one neutered male with as many females as will get along with each other, or two male pairs and you could get more females to be with the females you have. With 3 males, no matter what you will have to have at least two separate groups/cages. I currently have a neutered male with two females and a neutered male with 3 females. They can all be together in a large run outside, but I have to supervise it as the boys sometimes get in a scuffle and sometimes even the girls from opposite herds will have a little argument. Below is what happened when one of my boars got into the other boars cage with the females in there too (I had them in a makeshift cage in the basement when our AC went out for a week). Poor Olaf’s ear is permanently split in two.

Qualcast&Flymo · Sep 9, 2018

Lilguinea112816 said:
Yes i checked their are 2 females and 2 males

That's good :nod:

Lilguinea112816 said:
What are other ways to have herds?

Basically, a herd is one male with any number of females. Or any number of females without a male.
You can also have pairs of boars, so long as they are compatible; if you put 2 dominant type boars together they will fight. ( I have a boar who had to be neutered to go with sows because he was dominant over his previous companion and wouldn't get on with any of the boars I tried to pair him with.)

If you decided to have a pair of boars and neuter one of your males to make a herd with your sows, you would need to keep the boar pair well away from the others as the smell of sow pheremones can upset even well bonded boar pairs.