Bully Pig

ThePotterPiggie

ThePotterPiggie

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Hi! I have three 9-month-old guinea pigs. About four months after I bought them, I noticed that one of the piggies, Stan, had been bullying another, Ted, by biting or scratching him repeatedly. They have been separated since; two piggies in one cage, and Stan on his own. I know that it isn't advisable to keep a guinea pig on its own, but I can't purchase another piggy to keep Stan company, and have no idea what to do. Can anyone help? :help:(P.S. If I try to hold Stan, he bites me really hard)
 
hello welcome to the forum

Unfortunately Boar trios rarely work. Have a read of this thread here Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

he is biting you because more than likely he is scared. We had a biting piggy Vimto.

Some piggies while fine in the cage and interacting on their terms with you but when on laps feel a little vulnerable, the bites are his way of telling you he does not like it or feels threatened. I used to get actual snaps off Vimto and she would draw blood too :(
She was just a very scared piggie and felt vulnerable on laps or being held. First off start by interacting with him in his cage offer him food, then do what we did with Vimto at laptimes - We worked at it and would take her out for 30 seconds then pop here home, we did this 3 times a week for around a month weeks, then slowly increased it up to 5 mins via 30 second increments . Each lap session she'd have a sprig of coriander. It took us 6-8 months but she doesn't bite now and will happily chill on laps for a while but not for too long :)) We would never let anyone else have Vimto on there lap in case she wanted to taste the forbidden flesh once more :))

But some piggies really hate lap time and we as owners have to respect that, we'd all but gave up with Vimto and used to interact at the bars with her in the cage until we gave the above method a try.

Have a read on biting here also " Biting" And What You Can Do
 
Thanks a lot, sport_billy. Do you have any ideas on how to keep lonely piggies entertained?
 
Hi, you did very well to separate them when signs of aggression were shown. @sport_billy gave fantastic advise on trying to neutralize behavior and biting. We have been working for about 8 months now on our first guinea pig rescue, whom is a very dominant personality (I just got a couple stitches from trying to intervene the last failed bonding-totally my fault and haven't had the problem of hard nips again). While I am still learning a lot, especially with boars, I have noticed with our very stubborn little Tybalt that changes can affect him as well and when he is in a mode to be more scared or uncertain, he responds to the end fighting and in more ways then just the biting. Even changing a short time with bonding and changing the cages around to where the boars and even the female cages, at one point, seemed to give him more stress and he began shaking and biting the cages. Yep, our little monster :-).

It really sounds as if you have a bit of stressed and uncertain little guy there. This is really going to take some time, he even has to get used to being separated from the other two now. I know it's rare a guinea pig can't bond with another after some work, our Tybalt seems to be unable to be bonded at this stage successfully with another and he is alone as well. We have first put the two cavy cages back to back with another male whom we are bonding in the very near future and waited some days for the two boars to settle down before taking the back walls apart and connecting the cage so that there is just one wall as a separator between the two. They are not chattering anymore and are sniffing noses through the openings of the separator.

These guys are with my 17 year old daughter in her room. She is in there a lot and gives them a lot of one on one time most of the day so they do get attention from her and myself (she will take them each out to bring down to see me or we will go outside and they are there an hour or two in the outdoor run we made for them). We do this with each one. However, they are still quite lonely at times during the day, even with us there. I am still unsure what we will do with Tybalt as we have even had females with him (he was a 'she' when we rescued him, we found out he is a neutered male later on) and he is simply too aggressive. Our other boar is not so aggressive and was bullied by Tybalt. He won't be alone long as he does need a friend.

If you can maybe give him some time and attention and with a little patience, maybe in the future piggy dating can be an option or possibly neutering and having a female companion, when you are both ready to try . I think in this situation, it may just take some time and care in earning his trust.
 
Thanks so much for your reply, fanniephina. I am not able to get another piggy for Stan, and was wondering if anyone knew any activities/toys that could entertain my lonely piggy. Thanks again, fanniephina!
 
Hi again - I was wondering whether neutering my naughty boar, Stan, would help the dynamics. As it costs quite a bit of money, though, I wanted to check whether it would help.
 
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