Guinea Pig Reintroduction?

[frankiethepiggie]

Hello everyone this might be a long one, maybe grab a snack or two lol.

On January 3rd of this year I adopted a one month old male pig named Luca. I have one other male guinea pig named Frank. He is 5 years and seven months old and I’ve had him since he was five months old. Frank had a cage mate for his entire life that unfortunately passed away in March of 2020. Since then, he has been housed alone. I introduced Luca to Frank and I hate to say it, but I was anxious and gave up on the bonding out of fear. I have an earlier post that goes into more detail about how it went. But to summarize, Frank is a very very mellow pig. Luca is very rambunctious. They both chattered and rumbled which I know is normal behavior. Luca continuously humped frank which I know is also normal. But Frank didn’t hump Luca at all. I don’t think he cares much about asserting dominance. Luca humped Frank excessively and wouldn’t stop. Frank seemed like he was in distress and bled from his bum. I looked for any bite wounds and there were none. I think he bled from being humped so aggressively which I have never seen or heard of before. Frank was fine and I separated them as soon as I saw he was bleeding. But the blood was not from any bite wound, was it wrong to separate them? I was worried for Frank’s comfort as he is an older pig. I moved them to the C&C cage which is a 2x5. With only houses with more than one entrance so there weren’t any squabbles. After a few hours in the cage I decided to place a divider between the two. The divider was wrapped with fleece so there was zero interaction happening between the two pigs. I kept it this way for about three weeks. Yesterday I decided to remove the fleece so all there was separating them was the C&C grids. Luca has been chewing the bars, wanting to get to frank. I put their bowls next to the divider and they sit beside the divider and eat their veggies and pellets together and even eat hay from each other’s cage through the divider. I want to know if there is any hope for them being able to live together, even though I think I separated them too early which I really regret. Is it the right thing to do? I also want to add that Frank is the sweetest pig and will get along with ANY pig. He is so patient and laid back and that’s why I thought it would work out between them. I think it was wrong for me to get involved and separate them when they were trying to establish who was boss and I feel so bad for giving up on their bond. Any tips with re-bonding or anything else will be appreciated.

If you read this all the way, thanks so much for your time.

 

[Piggies&buns]

First thing to note is that chewing bars in a divided cage is not an indicator of whether they will bond - it can be territorial marking (which isn’t necessarily a good thing), aggressive I want to fight you, friendly I want to meet you.
All you can ever do is a neutral territory introduction and see how things go.
Even with the divider covered, they would still have been able to smell and hear each other and smell and sound are their strongest senses (not sight) so they absolutely would still have been interacting.

If Frank is accepting that Luca wants to be dominant and Luca calms down and doesn’t overdo the dominance, then hopefully they could work things out but Luca sounds like he is going to be very dominant. Sometimes baby and adult bondings just don’t work out though.

If you want to try again, ensure it is neutral territory - definitely not in the cage - somewhere else entirely. You need to let dominance behaviours play out, but you also need to be very aware of the submissive (Frank it sounds to be) pig’s reaction.

Moody Guinea Pigs: Depression, Bullying, Aggression, Stress, Fear and Antisocial Behaviour
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

 

[weepweeps]

As they didn’t actually have a blood drawing fight then it might be worth another go. Good luck.