Bonded or not?

[*SRH*]

Yesterday, Hazel came back from her eye removal operation and the vet said it was fine for her to be with her sisters as long as she is happy with them being near her.

Bonding was not really nasty, the worst it got was mild teeth chattering. They have been with each other for about 26 hours now and they have snuggled up together and they have all eaten and drank from the food bowl.

They only problem I have is that Hazel gets jumpy when someone comes up to her on the side with no eye. It calms down soon after but I am not sure if this is normal behaviour for a guinea pig with one eye.

I plan to leave them in their neutral territory untill tommorrow. Does this sound ok and is their any advice for settling in a guinea pig with one eye?

 

[Bean]

You'll probably find that she'll always be a little jumpy if she gets startled from the blind side, but give it some time and she's settle down a lot and will learn to use the other eye more and smell things approaching.

If shes very sensitive about them approaching it she's give a warning nip to make herself feel safer, if you notice her doing this regularly, then when you go to pick her up or hand feed her approach from the good side.

I had a little one that lost an eye and after recuperating he was fine and dandy

 

[Freela]

I think it's very normal as she adjusts to not having vision on that side- I'm sure it just startles her because she can't see her sister coming! I haven't dealt with this issue with guinea pigs, but we did have two dogs who went blind and we could always tell when their vision had worsened because they would startle over things that they wouldn't startle over before. Then they would adjust to that level of vision and get more comfortable with their surroundings again.