Bully pig

[Megan0003]

Hello! My name is Megan and I own two 1.5 year old male guinea pigs. I bought them from a nice family on Craigslist about 5 months ago. During the first few months there was a lot of fighting (no blood) and now its settled down more but Zeppelin the dominant male seems to be almost “bullying” Linus the other piggie. He chatters at him, mounts him a largely unnecessary amount and picks fights very frequently. I feel bad for Linus because he is the sweetest boy ever and just gets thrown around by Zeppelin. Tonight I had enough and separated them but now Z chews on the cage that I put him in bc hes mad. They are very bonded though. I think it maybe has something to do with a mix between piggie puberty and cage size. I'm in the process of building them a two level 40” by 22” cage out of a dresser so they are in a smaller cage rn (28” by 28”). What else can I do? I'm in high school. I cant be kept awake by them fighting every night or by Zep chewing the cage in anger.

 

[BortusandPump]

What cuties!
I'd start with two of everything! especially with a bullied pig. You don't want one pig blocking the other off from food/water/hiding spots, so I would start with getting another bottle and foodbowl. Try to switch to hides with 2 exits as well so that Linus can get away if he needs to.

my two boys don't get along the best either, I always try to hand feed their veggies as much as I can to make sure they both get the same amount (one is a bit of a food hog/thief )

It sounds to me that it's not really the best bond, so I would still keep an eye out for any more aggressive fighting.
Especially with boars that's really not quite enough space for them, so hopefully the move over helps them out!

 

[Piggies&buns]

Hi. They are gorgeous piggies!
At their age it is not likely to be puberty - they should be over the worst of that now.
As advised above, two of all equipment helps.
However, the biggest thing with males is that they need a huge amount of space. Giving them a bigger cage should help but if I’ve understood correctly, even the new cage you are building isn’t quite big enough and it may not stop all their issues. 40 inches is only just over 3 feet and The ideal cage size for two males is 72 inches (6 feet) by 24 inches (two feet). With the cage you are building being two level, unfortunately upstairs levels are only a bonus and it is the single level floor space which counts.
As you have now separated them, you have to go about putting them back in the same cage in the correct way. Separating boys will cause them to go into dominance again so you will probably find that the mounting etc will continue while your dominant pig reasserts his position. Unfortunately with males, you cannot separate and reintroduce multiple times. Once they are together they need to stay together. You only separate when it becomes clear that they can’t ever live together and in that case, they need to be separated permanently.