Fighting boars, and bloodshed :(

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PhoebeDee

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Hi Everyone.

I have two male guinea pigs, who are approximately 3 and a half months old called Wolfgang and George. Individually, they are lovely, but what started out as playful threatening has spread into full-scale war. Wolfgang has had his face chewed up (which has now healed very well) and after separating them for a few hours and putting the, back together, they seems fine. But last week, Wolfgang well and truly turned on George, and has left him with a bite on his bum, a cut on his face, and bit clean through his ear, which he then pulled apart completely. I have, obviously, separated them, but now I'm not really sure what to do next. I don't want to put them back together, becaus I'm quite scared what they will do to each other, but I don't want them to lose their social skills completely. Would getting baby/younger piggies be an option? Or will they be better on their own? I have had guide pigs in the past, but they have pretty much always been related, and nothing like this has ever happened!

All suggestions gratefully received!

Thanks,

Phoebe
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. I am sorry your boys have fallen out. What a shame. I do not think you should put them together at all. The best thing you can do it to take them to a rescue were they do boar dating. This is when the boar can choose their own friend. This really helps to stop fighting. With boars the more space you have for them the better. Have you heard of c and c cages? They are grids you connect to make a cage any size you want. It is ideal for boars as they need lots of space to get along. You can get the grids from Amazon,Ebay and B & Q.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum
Yes, I agree - once boars have drawn blood you will always have problems (and worries) getting them together again. If you can tell us where you are, we could direct you to a rescue. Boar dating is when a single boar is carefully introduced to another single boar to see if they can be friends. It's done in a quiet neutral environment over a period of time, and usually results in one boar (yours) picking out his own friend. That way, you know that they will get on. There are loads and loads of boars available at the moment as there was a big rescue of lots of them not so very long ago. Please please visit a rescue, as if you try and buy more babies from breeder or petshop, you could very well have the same problems all over again. it also isn't fair to piggies for them to live on their own as they are very social animals. If all else fails, you can opt for them to be neutered and they can then live (separately) with a ladypig or pigs.

HTH
 
Very sorry to hear your boars have fallen out. Once bloodshed happens its nearly always the case they won't go back together, it is best to keep them separated. I would look into getting each of them a friend, you could take each of them dating to pick their own friends if we could find out where you are. At the age of three months it won't hurt to sit out the hormonal period a little longer, see if the worst of it passes :)
 
Thanks everyone for your help! I live in the west midlands, but am at university in Hull, which is where the three of us live most of the time! I'm very conscious about the being social and not losing that social aspect. Their cages are facing each other at the moment so they can at least see each other and talk to each other, but they don't seem to want anything to do with each other at all! If you could recommend a place in either the midlands or hull that would be great, then I can look into it some more!
 
Ah, same happened with my pigs. I've told my story on other threads so sorry for repeating, but my pigs now live in 2 adjoining C and C cages with a 2 square grid as their 'barrier' - I put toys and newspaper through it and they play tug of war with each other. They sleep at the same time, get up at the same time and run loops at the same time so they are obviously still communicating. We got them a big posh fluffy cat bed (£20 or so) and every night we put them in it for 'snuggle time' where they lie on top of each other happily for up to an hour. They also have floor time together. With my pigs though, Clive is always the one clacking his teeth and trying to start a fight, whereas Burt just ignores him and toddles off under the couch. I don't know what result you'd get with 2 aggressive pigs, but to be fair when Burt and Clive were fighting it was pretty bad. Good luck.
 
Personally I wouldn't risk putting them back together. If they were mine. Would neuter them and get them girlfriends, but it does mean more guinea pigs and two cages.

Paula
 
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