Bonding four babies with two adults

[Fluffbabies]

Hello,

I’m looking for some advice. I’ve read the bonding help section about bonding two babies with two adults but we have four babies we would like to bond with our two adults.

Has anyone had experience bonding more than two babies with a pair of adults? We’ve ended up with four babies.. around 9 weeks old. Our heart ruling over our head. Any tips or things we should do differently?

More background below if needed…

We had a group of four adults and lost two to cancer in the past 6 months. The two we lost we the most dominant and active of the group. The two left are the more shy and quiet ones. They haven’t seemed to challenge the hierarchy between each other as we’ve noticed and seem to be on very equal footing. Oreo is a gentle soppy pig who has never started a disagreement and is very submissive. Nugget we rescued from a very traumatic background so she is more scared and needs a pig who will look after her. She got on well with Ginger the top boss pig to our surprise and would snuggle a lot with her.

They have seemed okay but Oreo has been a lot quieter since we lost the other two (we had those three since they were babies then got Nugget about 2.5 years later) and she sleeps a lot. She always has slept a lot and she is of course older now. She’ll be 5 in February. But we’ve noticed a change in her and Nugget seems very lonely because of how much Oreo sleeps.

So we thought it was time to try and bond another pair with them in the hopes it will cheer Oreo up and give Nugget more company. Bring some life back to the cage as they’ve both seemed down. They are in our living room so they get loads of enrichment, love and cuddles but we think they need some more active/outgoing friends to bring them back out their shells. That’s the hope anyway.

We do have a plan B.. space for a second cage if bonding doesn’t go well. Unfortunately to give them nice big cages the two cages would need to be in two different rooms. The four babies are currently quarantining in the other room.

 

[Fluffbabies]

They are all sows by the way. We think Nugget is slightly younger than Oreo perhaps 4 years old. And the cage they will be in is 5x3 C&C but they will also get daily floor time in a much bigger space. We were advised to get babies/really young ones as opposed to a pair of older sows with a dominant leader.

 

[Piggies&buns]

This is our bonding guide which explains the neutral territory bonding process. All you can do is put them all on neutral territory and see how things go. It is, in theory, easier to bond babies with existing adults as the babies won’t challenge the hierarchy, however, not all baby bondings do come off so it’s great you have a back up plan for living arrangements

Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?

As the babies have each other for company (assuming they are all together in one cage), it is ok to quarantine them.

 

[Merab]

Hope the bonding goes well.
I highly recommend the bonding guides, they saved my sanity when I bonded 2 pairs of sows

 

[dhill_cb7]

Good luck with the bonding ! I hope all works out for you!
Pictures of your piggies ?

 

[Fluffbabies]

Thanks everyone! Any ideas on what size the space should be for two adults and four babies? Would a 5x3 be okay to too big for bonding? And you only have hay in there right? This will be our first bonding.

We weren’t necessary going to keep Nugget when we rescued her it was more an emergency to save her life. We put her in a smaller C&C cage next to our cage thinking if we were going to keep her we’d have to bond her in the morning as our three had seen her and were chewing the cage trying to get to her. In the morning we found her in the big cage with our three She had jumped in presumbly having jumped on the house then over the grids and any bonding must have happened in the night because they were all chilling together! The cheeky fluffballs!

Photos of the babies…

 

[Fluffbabies]

And these are our beautiful older ladies

 

[Piggies&buns]

Is the 5x3 cage where some piggies already live? If so you cannot carry out the bonding in that cage.
Bonding needs to be somewhere entirely neutral. If you try to bond in the cage where piggies already live, then putting the new ones in can be seen as a territory invasion and it will most likely not end well.

If the 5x3 is not already home to piggies, then it is absolutely fine for them to bond in it and live in a cage of that size permanently. Six piggies need a recommended size of 18 square feet and a 5x3 is roughly 21 square feet, so is perfect for them.

And yes, a bonding pen needs to be just a pile of hay and water. No hides initially.

 

[Merab]

Thanks everyone! Any ideas on what size the space should be for two adults and four babies? Would a 5x3 be okay to too big for bonding? And you only have hay in there right? This will be our first bonding.

We weren’t necessary going to keep Nugget when we rescued her it was more an emergency to save her life. We put her in a smaller C&C cage next to our cage thinking if we were going to keep her we’d have to bond her in the morning as our three had seen her and were chewing the cage trying to get to her. In the morning we found her in the big cage with our three She had jumped in presumbly having jumped on the house then over the grids and any bonding must have happened in the night because they were all chilling together! The cheeky fluffballs!

Photos of the babies…

You forgot the cuteness warning !

 

[Fluffbabies]

Is the 5x3 cage where some piggies already live? If so you cannot carry out the bonding in that cage.
Bonding needs to be somewhere entirely neutral. If you try to bond in the cage where piggies already live, then putting the new ones in can be seen as a territory invasion and it will most likely not end well.

If the 5x3 is not already home to piggies, then it is absolutely fine for them to bond in it and live in a cage of that size permanently. Six piggies need a recommended size of 18 square feet and a 5x3 is roughly 21 square feet, so is perfect for them.

And yes, a bonding pen needs to be just a pile of hay and water. No hides initially.

Don’t worry won’t be using their cage to bond them in! We know that’s a huge no no.

The consideration is can we put the bonding set up in the same room they’re used to being in or will that be too familiar? Because the only other space is in the spare room where the babies are. I’m not sure it’ll feel like home to the babies if we do a different cage with different bedding as they will only be in that room for their 1-2 weeks quarantine. Unless we do it in the kitchen or the bathroom floor.. they’re both small rooms though, so they will have less space for the bonding but it‘ll be completely new to all of them. And if it’s the kitchen floor we can still keep an eye on them from the sofa.. and be safe from needing the loo while they’re sorting themselves out in the bathroom I think we’d only fit a 3x3 in the kitchen though… is that enough room to bond 2 adults and 4 babies?

 

[Roselina]

Beautiful babies and lovely to see Oreo and Nugget. Good luck. I can’t offer any advice as I’m a newish guinea pig owner. I’m looking forward to hearing any updates and I’ve got my fingers crossed !

 

[Piggies&buns]

Don’t worry won’t be using their cage to bond them in! We know that’s a huge no no.

The consideration is can we put the bonding set up in the same room they’re used to being in or will that be too familiar? Because the only other space is in the spare room where the babies are. I’m not sure it’ll feel like home to the babies if we do a different cage with different bedding as they will only be in that room for their 1-2 weeks quarantine. Unless we do it in the kitchen or the bathroom floor.. they’re both small rooms though, so they will have less space for the bonding but it‘ll be completely new to all of them. And if it’s the kitchen floor we can still keep an eye on them from the sofa.. and be safe from needing the loo while they’re sorting themselves out in the bathroom I think we’d only fit a 3x3 in the kitchen though… is that enough room to bond 2 adults and 4 babies?

Bonding needs to be done outside of their normal territory. It could be done in the same room because the cage is their territory not the room
They will need space in the bonding area to move around freely and get away from each other. A 3x3 is only big enough for two sows, so I personally would not want to bond six in a cage of that size

 

[Fluffbabies]

I think we will move the furniture round in the living room then so they can have a big space to bond but it’s not usually where the older ladies’ cage was because I feel they’d see it as their space even in a new enclosure.

We’re getting excited in anticipation to attempt bonding. We can only hope it will work and that they won’t fall out later when the babies go through their puberty hormones. They were quarantined for over 1 week before we got them and it was suggested to quarantine for 1 week but I think we will do 2 weeks. They look very well but want to be safe.

 

[Piggies&buns]

As no piggy is alone, then you are fine to quarantine them to be safe.
It’s only when you have single piggies abs babies under 16 weeks of age that you cannot carry out quarantine due to the high social needs of babies

Hopefully everything will go well but It’s always good to have a back up plan
Keep us posted!

 

[Fluffbabies]

We’re hoping to bond tomorrow or Sunday… should we make a new C&C cage with a divider down the middle and put the babies on one side and our pair of older ladies on the other so they can get used to each other over night? Then remove the divider and hidies to do the bonding with just pile of hay and water bottle in there? Would this be better than a cold bonding where they haven’t met before?

it would have to be where their current cage is and the same size 5x3 but we’d use all new fleece and the divider would leave the two groups with half the area each.. would this be okay or cause more issues?

 

[Merab]

Hopefully we hear good news very soon then.
Hope all goes well

 

[Bill & Ted]

Fingers crossed the bonding goes well with all your piggies x

 

[My Piggies]

Hopefully the bonding goes well with your piggies