OriDgsl
New Born Pup
Hello, I'm a new member (created an account last week ! my first post was about adding another floor to my cavy cage but I guess that'll be delayed now 
).
Sorry for the very long post, I feel context is very important for my issue, both until now and now...
I have 2 boars: Baptistin born in May 2017 and Sonic born late spring 2018, living in a 2x5 cavy cage. Sonic joined Baptistin in July 2018 a month after Baptistin's little buddy died from kidney damage after having a bacteria attacking all his organs (poor little guy was seriously inbred...), at the time Baptistin was already separated from his buddy because he was always chasing him and the little guy really needed rest. Baptistin was very depressed after he died so we decided to quickly get him a new friend, and though he brighten the second Sonic arrived he was still a bully so we kept them separated. I tried introduction in neutral territory, with no smells. However Sonic has a pretty dominant personality and decided he was the boss even though he was younger and smaller, so they always ended up fighting. I would get them back in the cavy when I was seeing tension building up, first it was only after 5 minutes, then 10, then 15... Eventually we got there, floor time was always peaceful: they ate from the same pile of grass, explored together, slept near each other... I should mention that they never fought once in their summer pen, they graze together peacefully, and that in the separated cavy they always slept stuck to the middle grid to be close to each other.
So late January, after a year of peaceful floor time we decided to give it a try and remove the middle grid during a cleaning. We replaced all the cosies with big tunnels and then later fleece curtains. It went pretty smoothly: a bit of teeth shattering, and some light fights (no more than tufts of hair) that wouldn't last. The second week it was only light teeth shattering, and then everything seemed to settle down: they would sleep next to each other, eat from the same bowl, sometimes a bit of chasing (slow) and teeth shattering (soft). Last week I noticed a small cut on Baptistin lip, but they weren't fighting so I just assumed they had an argument over something, sanitized and that was it. However last night I was woken up 3 times be intense chasing, I got up and refilled their grass bowl. When I arrived everytime they had stopped so it didn't seem so bad, it was dark and I couldn't see, but this morning Baptistin had 3 wounds! A small one on his jaw, one on his back (not a cut, but like so much hair was bit of that the skin went with it
) and a cut at a foot (of course I sanitized everything and will do again several times a day). They were each at opposite sides of the cavy shattering for now reason, and Sonic soon begun to angrily chase Baptistin again.
So I set their floor time sheet and gave them plenty of hay and vegetables, at the beginning they ate calmly but after 5min Sonic started chasing Baptistin out of the sheet, and chased him away all across the living room
Now it settle down a bit, Baptistin is eating hay but Sonic is hiding in a hidey which is not like him at all.
I'm wondering how we went in a couple of days from guinea pigs finally happily living together to this
I'm wondering if it might be linked to the lockdown... It's time home but a weird one, I'm worried about my family, I'm worried about my job (I work in a small artisan pastry shop and missing Easter is a catastrophe), and I love my job, some people are probably happy to get paid to stay home instead of going to work but to me it's only getting paid not doing what I like (I do spent my entire days baking and sorting my recipes, but it's not the same of course). The first light wound I notice was in the middle of last week, never once before had Sonic really bitten Baptistin, neither during their floor time for the past year and a half nor during the 2 month they spent together in the cavy cage.
Also I should add that Saturday evening I had horrible news with the death of a puppy from my dog's litter last year, two month ago. The poor little girl was only 9 month old, apparently she caught some kind of brain virus and died in 24 hours. I took care of these puppies for 3 months, fed them, walked them, played with them, and also her owners are people we know who don't live far away so I was seeing her once in a while and was looking forward seeing her again after lockdown is over, only to learn she's been dead for 2 months (I guess since they know how much I loved my puppies they just couldn't bring themself to tell us). Anyway I was devastated and spent the entire evening crying, and even yesterday I was really down and hearbroken knowing I would never see again my sweet little black lion. So I'm wondering if the guinea pig caught up some of my distress and this is how they dealt with it...
Also this morning one hay rack was empty, so I'm wondering if maybe they started fighting over the second one and it escalated because of all the stress around them.
So my question is: what should I do now?
As I finish typing this, they're still on floor time, going from eating calmly next to each other to heavy teeth chattering for no apparent reason. Sonic is still hiding a lot. Baptistin looks pretty scared too. Now they're sleeping on opposite sides of the living room. I'm planning on feeding them everything they love non stop today to try to settle them down. I'm also going to do an early cage cleaning. But I'm wondering if I should put back the grid back right away, or if I give it one more try... The thing is, the worriness about this virus and the lockdown is far from over, and I'm really acting normal but I guess they just feel something is wrong. So I'm wondering if I should just put the grid back for now, and let them together during floor time and in their outside pen on warm days like I did before and wait until the atmosphere is lighter to try to reunite them again. I'm at a loss here, everything was fine a week ago, I actually ordered them split cosies last week because they were always sleeping close to each other, taking turns with one sleeping inside a tunnel and the other one lying against it... If I do separate again, should I wait until this whole crisis is over to try to reunite again? What will the steps be then?
Any advice is welcome
).Sorry for the very long post, I feel context is very important for my issue, both until now and now...
I have 2 boars: Baptistin born in May 2017 and Sonic born late spring 2018, living in a 2x5 cavy cage. Sonic joined Baptistin in July 2018 a month after Baptistin's little buddy died from kidney damage after having a bacteria attacking all his organs (poor little guy was seriously inbred...), at the time Baptistin was already separated from his buddy because he was always chasing him and the little guy really needed rest. Baptistin was very depressed after he died so we decided to quickly get him a new friend, and though he brighten the second Sonic arrived he was still a bully so we kept them separated. I tried introduction in neutral territory, with no smells. However Sonic has a pretty dominant personality and decided he was the boss even though he was younger and smaller, so they always ended up fighting. I would get them back in the cavy when I was seeing tension building up, first it was only after 5 minutes, then 10, then 15... Eventually we got there, floor time was always peaceful: they ate from the same pile of grass, explored together, slept near each other... I should mention that they never fought once in their summer pen, they graze together peacefully, and that in the separated cavy they always slept stuck to the middle grid to be close to each other.
So late January, after a year of peaceful floor time we decided to give it a try and remove the middle grid during a cleaning. We replaced all the cosies with big tunnels and then later fleece curtains. It went pretty smoothly: a bit of teeth shattering, and some light fights (no more than tufts of hair) that wouldn't last. The second week it was only light teeth shattering, and then everything seemed to settle down: they would sleep next to each other, eat from the same bowl, sometimes a bit of chasing (slow) and teeth shattering (soft). Last week I noticed a small cut on Baptistin lip, but they weren't fighting so I just assumed they had an argument over something, sanitized and that was it. However last night I was woken up 3 times be intense chasing, I got up and refilled their grass bowl. When I arrived everytime they had stopped so it didn't seem so bad, it was dark and I couldn't see, but this morning Baptistin had 3 wounds! A small one on his jaw, one on his back (not a cut, but like so much hair was bit of that the skin went with it
) and a cut at a foot (of course I sanitized everything and will do again several times a day). They were each at opposite sides of the cavy shattering for now reason, and Sonic soon begun to angrily chase Baptistin again.So I set their floor time sheet and gave them plenty of hay and vegetables, at the beginning they ate calmly but after 5min Sonic started chasing Baptistin out of the sheet, and chased him away all across the living room
Now it settle down a bit, Baptistin is eating hay but Sonic is hiding in a hidey which is not like him at all.I'm wondering how we went in a couple of days from guinea pigs finally happily living together to this
I'm wondering if it might be linked to the lockdown... It's time home but a weird one, I'm worried about my family, I'm worried about my job (I work in a small artisan pastry shop and missing Easter is a catastrophe), and I love my job, some people are probably happy to get paid to stay home instead of going to work but to me it's only getting paid not doing what I like (I do spent my entire days baking and sorting my recipes, but it's not the same of course). The first light wound I notice was in the middle of last week, never once before had Sonic really bitten Baptistin, neither during their floor time for the past year and a half nor during the 2 month they spent together in the cavy cage.
Also I should add that Saturday evening I had horrible news with the death of a puppy from my dog's litter last year, two month ago. The poor little girl was only 9 month old, apparently she caught some kind of brain virus and died in 24 hours. I took care of these puppies for 3 months, fed them, walked them, played with them, and also her owners are people we know who don't live far away so I was seeing her once in a while and was looking forward seeing her again after lockdown is over, only to learn she's been dead for 2 months (I guess since they know how much I loved my puppies they just couldn't bring themself to tell us). Anyway I was devastated and spent the entire evening crying, and even yesterday I was really down and hearbroken knowing I would never see again my sweet little black lion. So I'm wondering if the guinea pig caught up some of my distress and this is how they dealt with it...
Also this morning one hay rack was empty, so I'm wondering if maybe they started fighting over the second one and it escalated because of all the stress around them.
So my question is: what should I do now?
As I finish typing this, they're still on floor time, going from eating calmly next to each other to heavy teeth chattering for no apparent reason. Sonic is still hiding a lot. Baptistin looks pretty scared too. Now they're sleeping on opposite sides of the living room. I'm planning on feeding them everything they love non stop today to try to settle them down. I'm also going to do an early cage cleaning. But I'm wondering if I should put back the grid back right away, or if I give it one more try... The thing is, the worriness about this virus and the lockdown is far from over, and I'm really acting normal but I guess they just feel something is wrong. So I'm wondering if I should just put the grid back for now, and let them together during floor time and in their outside pen on warm days like I did before and wait until the atmosphere is lighter to try to reunite them again. I'm at a loss here, everything was fine a week ago, I actually ordered them split cosies last week because they were always sleeping close to each other, taking turns with one sleeping inside a tunnel and the other one lying against it... If I do separate again, should I wait until this whole crisis is over to try to reunite again? What will the steps be then?
Any advice is welcome
They're both behaving completely crazy today. I'm thinking maybe their stress level are still to the roof after the fighting, so it's best to give them both a time out and separate for their peace and mine. Then we'll see how they behave during floor time and in their outside pen, but I don't think I'll try to reunite until the mood is lighter around the house. It can't be a coincidence that during the first week of lockdown I get first a mild cut and then they suddenly hate each other. During their very early floor times a year and a half ago they would sometimes fight but it was only seconds, we just had to say "HEP!" and they would stop, chatter for a few seconds and go back to eating. Very shocking to see Sonic run to Baptistin, grab him and not let go even when lifter, and to see Baptistin chatter at the dogs like this - he loves the dogs and always come and say hello when they come close to the cavy.
They can't be in a different room either because the 2 bedrooms are only 3x3m and already packed, plus they're not heated (house is only heated by a wood stove in the living room).
Then I'll do it a Friday, my husband is off on Saturday and Sunday and myself on Monday, so that's 3 days in a row with someone watching and ready to separate if needed
) but it stopped right away. Yesterday morning I picked grass for them before the ground was dry enough so they could go outside and they ate together, then they went outside and grazed all day. Yesterday evening was pretty quiet, a few head raising but otherwise they just ate their hay and vegetables. This morning when I woke up they were eating hay, and my husband who had been up for an hour told me they had been very quiet all morning. Now they're back outside.
(Also I aways use non scented and non bio detergent for the fleece since Sonic has allergies, and even after a 60° wash there's still some smell onto it, I actually find it pleasant, like a soft musky smell with hints of honey 
They sleep next to each other most of the time, eat from the same pile of grass even though there's always two... Last week my husband put them in their garden pen and put only one of their hideys in there. When I realized it I expected to find them really nervous, having competed for the only hidey for hours... But instead found them sharing the hidey 
(a first for them!)
) will be 4 and probably past his spring hormone surges.