I have recently adopted another guinea pig for my pig Arthur who was left alone after his brother passed away, it’s only been 4 days since his passing and only 1 day since I adopted the New Guinea pig. They seemed to be doing pretty well with the introduction process until I got home tonight and saw that the New Guinea pig has a few bites on his face. Nothing horrible but it doesn’t look great either. They haven’t had any Huge fights they just end up nipping each other in the face. Is this normal behavior for two males during introductions or should I seperate them?
Bonding two young guinea pigs
- Thread starter kennyboo
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It sounds like the biting piggy has been cornered and felt very threatened. Piggies will generally not bond or go back after a major fight. How are your boys with each other? Is there any tension between them? If in doubt, please follow the advice in the guides below and do a trial separation; you will latest know with a re-intro on neutral ground whether you are dealing with a grudge match or not.
Bonding: Illustrated Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics
Bonds In Trouble
Alternatively, if you have any new piggies, also keep an eye out in case what looks initially like a bite wound is actually the onset of ringworm (a highly infectious fungal infection that is transmitted to humans and other pet species, too). The period between infection and outbreak is 10-14 days. Ringworm is sadly quite common in any piggies that have not been adopted from a good standard rescue with mandatory quarantine and vet care. If you adopt from any other place, you ideally always conduct a quarantine for that purpose as you will otherwise have to treat all pets in contact with the infected piggy (including yourself, too) to prevent an outbreak. In case of ringworm, good hygiene is absolute key on getting on top of it.
You can see pictures of ringworm onset that looks like a scratch or bite in the ringworm guide.
What to check and look out for in new guinea pigs (vet checks, sexing, parasites&illness)
Ringworm: Hygiene And Pictures
Importance Of Quarantine
They seem to avoid each other a lot, except last night one was laying in his cuddle cup and the other was laying outside of the cuddle cup, they do a lot of rumble strutting and chase sometimes but it seems to have calmed down a lot. I just can’t tell if they are actually going to like each other since they mostly have been staying at opposite ends of the cage.