Guinea pig dominance?

[Monoazz]

Hi, Ive had Guinea pigs before, Pepsi and squiggles, however squiggles ending up passing away not long after getting them making Pepsi a lone pig until she passed.

Since then, we have gotten two new pigs, coconut and twix, both around 5 months.

I’ve noticed that when in the cage, coconut and twix will “purr” at eachother, and twix will begin slowly walking, swaying her butt, and coconut will follow and nip at it. I’ve heard it’s a dominance thing but I’m unsure since our previous Guinea pigs were older and didnt fight when they both were alive. It also seems that coconut and twix take it in turns, sometimes twix will just be eating and coconut will nip her, but sometimes twix seems to “torment” coconut and walk extremely slow in front of her and purr at her. Is this is a dominance thing, or a baby Guinea pig thing?

And as well as this, twix is content with being handled, but coconut has a habit of biting everything, including humans as she has bit me a few times, even after we put her away, once shes picked back up and handled, she starts biting anything she can, Is there a reason and / or a way to prevent this?

 

[worrier]

It's a dominance thing! I believe it's called a rumble strut. Before my sweet piggy, Penguin, passed she used to do this quite frequently to her sister, Peanut. I'm not sure about the biting though as Peanut never used to bite Penguin, she just used to make annoyed sounds if Penguin started mounting her (also a dominance thing) and would run into a house or a tunnel.

I'm not so sure about biting as a whole either, none of my piggies have ever had an issue with biting. I've only gotten bitten once when I was cutting one of their nails for the first time. Hopefully someone comes along who knows more about this and can tell you what's best to do!

 

[Monoazz]

It's a dominance thing! I believe it's called a rumble strut. Before my sweet piggy, Penguin, passed she used to do this quite frequently to her sister, Peanut. I'm not sure about the biting though as Peanut never used to bite Penguin, she just used to make annoyed sounds if Penguin started mounting her (also a dominance thing) and would run into a house or a tunnel.

I'm not so sure about biting as a whole either, none of my piggies have ever had an issue with biting. I've only gotten bitten once when I was cutting one of their nails for the first time. Hopefully someone comes along who knows more about this and can tell you what's best to do!

Oh alright, thank you!

 

[worrier]

Oh alright, thank you!

Dominance behaviours are very normal unless they become violent x