Fighting guinea pigs!

I have never weighed them before but I can tell you Rita is extremely healthy compared to what she was. When we got her, she was cute and round and fluffy, but when I picked her up, she was nothing but fluff, with a few bones and some skin stretched over them. She ate a lot and is now well rounded and plump. Definatly bigger, but we got her at 3 weeks so thats obvious. I hand feed them veggies so she gets her fair share, and my piggies aren't to fussed about water, they just waddle down the ramp for a sip when they feel like it. Yeah, with the whole shed thing, I am planning on getting some C&C to goaround the edges, but only coming forward not all the way to the door, like in that video you showed me. I set up the playpen attached to the hutch yesterday, and they ran about outside. Obviously they had their fill because there was at least one guinea pig outsi and there was a little bit left over. Thank you for all your helpful suggestions!
 
I have never weighed them before but I can tell you Rita is extremely healthy compared to what she was. When we got her, she was cute and round and fluffy, but when I picked her up, she was nothing but fluff, with a few bones and some skin stretched over them. She ate a lot and is now well rounded and plump. Definatly bigger, but we got her at 3 weeks so thats obvious. I hand feed them veggies so she gets her fair share, and my piggies aren't to fussed about water, they just waddle down the ramp for a sip when they feel like it. Yeah, with the whole shed thing, I am planning on getting some C&C to goaround the edges, but only coming forward not all the way to the door, like in that video you showed me. I set up the playpen attached to the hutch yesterday, and they ran about outside. Obviously they had their fill because there was at least one guinea pig outsi and there was a little bit left over. Thank you for all your helpful suggestions!
 
Okay, I got back from camping, and it seems to be worse. I left them with the neighbors daughter because she is quite reliable and is completely in love with them, and I can say that while I was gone they and the dog were spoiled rotten. I explained the fighting situation to her and showed her the spare hutch incase it escilated. When I got back, she told me that Rita, my littlest, had been bleeding so she seperated her for thenight. She said it was fine in the morning and she put her back. I am now extremly worried. How can I even seperate them into to gruops, if there are no 2 ideal groups?
 
Ps Rita wasn't bledding that bad, it was a small cut/bite/scratch, but she wanted to make sure she was okay.
 
If there has been a fight which has drawn blood, then I’d be looking at the situation and thinking that things may well get worse from now and they should be separated. Do you know who hurt Rita?
Can ruby, teazel and snowy live together and then rita and Timtam live together? If they can, then perhaps that is your option.
How big is this spare hutch you’ve got? Could a pair live in there and the other three live in your main cage (the one with the run underneath).
 
That could work, but am unsure who hurt Rita and if Ruby would get on with Teazel.....
 
Just to add to my post, even separating into a pair and a trio isn’t ideal as keeping an odd number of pigs together (which is obviously the situation when they all live together with their being five) means there is always someone likely to get left out, but I can’t see what else you can do at the moment. You just don’t want to risk a big fight and injuries.
 
Is your spare hutch big enough to keep two piggies in? (Recommended size for two piggies is 1.5 metres). Obviously you wouldn’t want to separate them out and then put them in a cage which isn’t big enough because it won’t solve any problems and may cause that pair to fall out due to lack of space.
 
It is about 800 by 900 cm. Is that big enough? I really don't want to seperate them unless I have to.
 
I’m assuming you mean 800 x 900 mm not cm. A hutch of 80x90cm is not really big enough for even two piggies to live in.
I appreciate you don’t want to separate them, but if there is a problem and fights and bites are happening then some action may need to be taken to sort things out.
The hutch they are in (the original one with the run underneath) is not big enough for all five piggies to live in harmoniously and is likely to be one of the contributing factors to their fighting (as well as the other comments tangle made at post 22 regarding resources). If you don’t want to separate (and I can understand why), then you need to get them into a much bigger hutch and hope that relationships haven’t broken down too much so that being in a bigger space sorts everything out. To house all five piggies together and ensure they have enough space, ( following the cage recommendation size guide on here) i think you’ll need a hutch measuring 2.4 metres long (180cm cage is big enough for 4 piggies but you need another 60cm for your fifth pig = 180+60=240cm/2.4m).
 
There are recommendations for enclosure sizes here.

The MINIMUM recommended size for 5 sows is 14 square feet. Which is 1.3 square metres. So if your shed is 2.9m long you'd need to build an enclosure 35cm wide to meet the bare minimum requirement. However as your sows are having issues that /may/ be related to insufficient space you'd be better off giving them at least an extra pig's space allowance (another 2 square feet, giving 16 square feet in total, 1.5m^2 or 2.9m x 50cm. But the more space they have the more likely they are to be able to sort out their differences.

Have you weighed them all again? It would be really useful for you to have a record of how their weights are changing, as that may flag up if you have an urgent situation to resolve or if you have time to wait and plan a little.
 
Back
Top