Help! Guinea Pigs Fighting

[Sydney Kraning]

Hello! I've been having some troubles with my four pigs fighting. Let me just start by saying I originally only had two boars and they got along wonderfully in their cage. Last June I got the opportunity to rescue two more boars but they each came with their own cage. I didn't have enough room to put them all together until late December. The current cage they are all four in is a 2x5 with a 2x2 loft, but they won't stop fighting! At first it was just chasing and lot of whining or complaining, but a little over a week ago I noticed some major hair loss and lots of scabs on the bum of one of my boars. I immediately took him to the vet to which she informed me that the scabs were wounds from another guinea pig and she adviced me to separate the injured pig for 2 weeks. His bottom is clearing up nicely but the other three pigs still are chasing each other and even pulling out tuffs of hair some times. Will this hopefully stop sometime? Or do I need to separate the pig I believe to be starting the fights? I really don't know what to do! Note: My first two pigs which I mentioned before got along wonderfully before now do now get along at all, I don't understand they were put together from the very first day they came home and got along so great. Now they hate each other!

 

[Swissgreys]

Hi and Welcome to the Forum.


Sorry to hear you are having some problems with your boys.
You will receive lots of excellent advice on here.
Sadly (as you are now finding out) a 5 x 2 is much too small for 4 boys.
It is the perfect cage size for 2 boys, but just doesn't offer enough space for four.
You really need to move 2 of the boys into a separate (and suitably large) cage asap before one of them gets seriously hurt.

There are some excellent tips on boar behaviour here:
Boars: A guide to successful companionship.

And lots of information on boars fighting here:
Boars: Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

Now that they have had a falling out you will need to work out which boars can live together - your original bonded pair may not necessarily go back together, so this could be a bit of trial and error as you try to re-bond everyone, and create 2 groups of 2.

Good luck with everything and I am sure others will be along soon to offer more good advice.

 

[sport_billy]

Welcome to the forum.

Good advice from Swissgreys above. More than two boys rarely work and end up with these type of fights. I would look at splitting them into two pairs as advised