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Bonding help please

The other option is an opaque divider a bit higher and wider than the cages so they can hear each other but not see or smell each other (pheromones) - the latter is the reason why the divider needs to be a bit bigger than the cage sides. Cardboard will do.

This does however prevent interaction and stimulation for your boy.
 
Guineapiggirl34 said:
Right now peace seems to have ensued. I will write again later to say if things have stayed settled or not.
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There may be the odd flare but your black girl may calm down once she notices that she is still in charge of her territory and her sister.
 
Ok, my brain is going on a total crazy fit of worry. She does seem a lot better now. To keep things interest8ng they have lots of hides toys etc many made of edible thing they can’t be washed and I can’t have two sets of everything, is his smell o the toys going to upset each time they are swapped around? (Unless they have a much smaller number of toys each not very interesting) We do hay in loo roll middles, they love their hay like this but there is no way on earth that the two cages loo rolls can be separated. Mum or my carers put the hay in the middles and puts them in bag on the floor which I already trip over, I have to pick the bag up with my feet to put a roll in each cage. Is his smell on the loo roll middle going to affect her? I feel terrible, she has had terrible poo for three months, I thought it was either dirty grass (we didn’t use patches that had been pooed on but I guessed there could be a residue - hence why they no longer have grass) or stress of loosing their male cagemate. But now I believe that all her digestive upset has been due to stress of him, what we thought was cute I want to know that boy pig, was I want to kill that boy pig. When we did poop soup we even used his poo as she seemed so interested in him, we only did it twice as she hated it and bought the Fibreplex. I love them so much I want to be the best piggie parent out there and yet I am doing so badly! I know maybe not as badly as many pigs in outdoor tiny hutches but still.
 
I personally would not put anything that smells of him into her cage - it’s just not a risk of upsetting her that I would take.
You will need two hides in the girls cage; and one hide in his cage (although he will need two hides in his cage once he has a friend).

If storing toilet roll middles takes up too much space then don’t use them. Just put the hay in piles in the cage - they can forage and play in and amongst the hay more easily that way (or put the hay in trays). Scatter their veg and pellets into the hay piles so they have to forage for them - it’s a great form of mental stimulation.

If you really want to give them toilet rolls sometimes, then have one in his cage and two in the girls cage - doesn’t even need to be at the same time - if you’ve only got one, then just give it to him and not the girls. Once destroyed, just throw them away; even if that means that they don’t have any more for a while.

You aren’t doing badly. None of this is your fault
 
What about me? I will smell of him? I put them on towels but my clothing etc will still smell of him? The fleeces I use get washed well , long washes with Ecover unscented, but I would guess there will be some scent that lingers?
 
Guineapiggirl34 said:
Ok, my brain is going on a total crazy fit of worry. She does seem a lot better now. To keep things interest8ng they have lots of hides toys etc many made of edible thing they can’t be washed and I can’t have two sets of everything, is his smell o the toys going to upset each time they are swapped around? (Unless they have a much smaller number of toys each not very interesting) We do hay in loo roll middles, they love their hay like this but there is no way on earth that the two cages loo rolls can be separated. Mum or my carers put the hay in the middles and puts them in bag on the floor which I already trip over, I have to pick the bag up with my feet to put a roll in each cage. Is his smell on the loo roll middle going to affect her? I feel terrible, she has had terrible poo for three months, I thought it was either dirty grass (we didn’t use patches that had been pooed on but I guessed there could be a residue - hence why they no longer have grass) or stress of loosing their male cagemate. But now I believe that all her digestive upset has been due to stress of him, what we thought was cute I want to know that boy pig, was I want to kill that boy pig. When we did poop soup we even used his poo as she seemed so interested in him, we only did it twice as she hated it and bought the Fibreplex. I love them so much I want to be the best piggie parent out there and yet I am doing so badly! I know maybe not as badly as many pigs in outdoor tiny hutches but still.
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Please do not swap anything between the cages. It will be seen as an invasion and is bound to set up hackles. You will only fire up hostilities again and upset your black girl further.

Scent swapping is one of the debunked 'magic wand' bonding tricks that don't work out because people recommending it are not aware that guinea pigs are territorial. In our own forum experience, it tends to backfire and not help. :(
 
Just handle the girls before you handle him. Your clothes won’t smell of him then

Re fleece - You will need a set of fleece used only for his cage and a set of fleece used only for the girls cage - and they can’t be used in each others cages
 
I cant see this working. I am on benefits. But more than the money, my dad who does the laundry has dementia (although he won’t admit it) and I believe some sort of defiance disorder, there is no way the fleeces will be kept seperate. I am so upset, if there really is no way of sharing fleeces I guess I will have to surrender someone to an animal shelter, and I can’t do that they are my children, I am just sat here weeping at the thought of loosing one of them.
 
Please tell me if we wash their fleece items really well but they have their own sets of other toys that that will work. I have lost two babies I. Six months despite going the vet several times saying something is wrong, we swapped vets after the first boy passed to a really good exotic vet, stilll we took our other boy and they felt sure it was teeth and just but him on pain killers. If I have to loose another, I can’t I am in a state you wouldn’t believe, I am screaming with crying.
 
They each get 3-5 cuddles a day from me and several more from my brother. He is especially keen on the lovely big black pig as she wheeks so much when cuddled so they all get a couple of cuddles a day from him but button (the black pig, I have been calling her the black pig for understanding) gets 4 a day from him!
 
I just thought of something, and I don’t know if it helps or makes a difference. I used to cuddle them on the same towel, as I would cuddle him on it then I would have one of the girls and then the other girl. and while she was cuddling me button( black pig) no sign of being angry, aggressive or upset she just snuggles in for a long cuddle. if the smell of the boy upset her so much wouldn’t she be angry when she was on me or is that different?
 
Guineapiggirl34 said:
I just thought of something, and I don’t know if it helps or makes a difference. I used to cuddle them on the same towel, as I would cuddle him on it then I would have one of the girls and then the other girl. and while she was cuddling me button( black pig) no sign of being angry, aggressive or upset she just snuggles in for a long cuddle. if the smell of the boy upset her so much wouldn’t she be angry when she was on me or is that different?
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If this was before the bonding failed then that is why she was ok with it then.
Now the bonding has failed she is not ok with seeing/smelling him going forward.
Cuddling her like this with his smell was also not taking place within in her territory.

Our advice is going to remain that you can’t share items between the cages. We know she is not happy about him being around and she is going to be territorial about it
 
Ok, dad has said if we get different coloured everything that is fabric, he should be able to remember to wash them and keep them for each cage. There may be some mistakes but I hope that won’t matter? I will obviously smell of them all but as you said that is not in her territory. We will do our best to keep her stress free but I can’t say it will be ‘perfect’ 100% of the time as mistakes happen. She has been a lot better since moving cages, she does tha boss pig dance sometimes at her sister but every pair of piggies I’ve had do that throughout the day. She isn’t at the ‘fence’ trying to dominate the boy anymore.
 
The only reason I said about surrendering someone to a rescue yesterday if I felt like I wasn’t taking good enough care of them stressing them out, like they would be better off without me, which made me even sadder. I hope you think that the steps I have said above are enough and occasional scent transferring does not make me a bad pig parent.
 
Mistakes happen, we know, and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad owner but do try your best to make sure you don’t transfer scents as much as possible. Scent transfer is a form of territory invasion which they don’t take kindly to and could set them back in settling into living as neighbours.

I don’t know what your routine is but maybe you could do cage cleans on different days or maybe there is something else you can think of to try to minimise the risk of scent transfer occurring.
 
I am not going to be able to do anything about the fact that I will smell of him. I just hope it doesn’t upset her, it doesn’t appear to she cuddles nicely with me, and we are now using seperate towels.
 
As long as you try to cuddle the girls first and then cuddle him afterwards then you can avoid transferring his scent to them too much

It’s good she seems to be ok at cuddle time though
 
I wash my hands but I wear the same cardigan for about two weeks before washing as I only have one I can wear (I have really extreme health issues I won’t bore you with them) so his smell with be on the sleeves a bit . She is not reacting to it.
 
The biggest issue is going to be within the cage - you don’t want his smell in her cage at all.

If she is ok having a cuddle then that is good. You will have to find what works for you around your health needs
 
Hi, I am going to need a lot of advice. So we wrote to the animal sanctuary/guniea pig rescue. They don’t do single female! They did female to female bonding sessions but not male to female bonding sessions! We are in Cornwall this is pretty much the only rescue here. I do t know what to do. Do we see if the little boy will take our little girl and see if button will bond with someone else? That seems unlikely due to her temperament. And much more stress for her, I think she has had enough stress poor girl. Do we buy a little girl and keep a third cage and hope that it gets on with our boy? If so how long do we keep her before she can meet him? Keeping him alone isnt an option. I have no idea what to do.😢
 
Putting your current little girl with him would likely mean buttons ends up alone. You could have course take her dating at the rescue (so if she rejected the new piggy at dating then you simply wouldn’t be bringing another piggy home) but as she has been fear aggressive with your boy, she is likely to be fear aggressive with another sow.

If you get a new female piggy to bond with your boy:

It depends how old a new girl is.
Babies under four months of age cannot be alone so you would need to do the bonding immediately on the day you brought her home.

If she is over four months of age and not from
A rescue then ideally you quarantine her for two weeks in a separate room.
You then move them to be side by side and leave them Like that for a week or two. Then you do the neutral territory bonding.

Do you have the space to keep three cages side by side?
 
No! (To the room thing)

And we have kept our little boy alone at 8 weeks til now. Which is why we got him neutered as soon as possible. He has been ok til now. He is very excited, has been against the girls til this week so he was fine (alone in a cage) but he seems a bit bored and slightly depressed now. We cuddle them a lot but it is not the same. Mum wrote to the rescue again saying are you sure, he is a castrated male, we don’t want him to live alone are you sure you can’t help us . So waiting for a reply. I can’t believe they won’t let a castrated male bond with a girl!

We bought the boy originally as the girls were very sad after their fella died and the rescue said it would be weeks to get a pig, and I’m not convinced they would have let us bond with a male anyway, so we thought we would buy a boy put him next to them to stop the girls being so sad, and it has turned into a nightmare. The boy has done more harm to poor button than good. I don’t want button to be alone, I don’t want him to be alone. As I have said I am very ill, mum is alr3ady stressed with looking after me (I am 35) and we want the lovely pig babies to be happy but there seems to be a brick wall in every direction!
 
I have to say I am incredibly surprised they won’t bond neutered boar/sow - the only thing I wonder is if they weren’t sure whether you boar is neutered so I’m glad you’ve been able to contact them and reiterate it.
I have never heard of a rescue refuse a neutered boar/sow bonding.

As you don’t have space for a third cage, getting another piggy from anywhere other than a rescue would put you in a risk situation if a potential bond failure.
 
I know if the rescue doesn’t come back with a positive yes we can try bonding him, then I honestly don’t know what to do. But I can’t get rid of any of them, I love them too much. Unless you think they would be better off elsewhere but it would break my heart. I want the best for them.
 
I don’t think your area is the country is well served by rescues and I don’t know how you are fixed for travelling but I have added our rescue list in just in case you find something useful on it

https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/guinea-pig-forum-recommended-rescues.196734/

I’m not going to tell you to rehome anyone - you need to do what you can cope with but you also need to do what is right for them.
Generally speaking, when a bonding fails you can keep single piggies side by side for interaction between the bars (it’s a situation I have with two of my boys - they were originally a pair but they had a fight nearly 2.5 years ago and have been side by side ever since. My other boys have passed away so I am now left with just these two who don’t like each other!). The difficulty now is that buttons has made it clear that that isn’t going to work for her so your position is being a bit more forced because of that.
 
Thank god , due to my own insecurities I always feel like people are telling me I am a terrible horrible person for the way I am doing anything. I I will let you know what the rescue says when they reply and maybe ask for your advice from there.
 
I know it is a difficult situation with button not wanting to be next to his cage, as I know two pigs next to each other can work in a pinch.
 
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