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Help! Lots of fighting!

  • Thread starter Piggies12437392
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Piggies12437392

Last night I was suddenly awoken by the horrific sound of screeching, and things being flung around the cage. Yesterday I moved to bonded females into a 3 by 5 c and c cage. They have 2 hides, one they had since we got them and one I made from an amazon box. The one they had has one entrance, the box has 2. When we got them they were heavily neglected and abused, they were in a 1 by 2 petsore cage, barely enough room to turn around, no fresh veggies, bugs and spiderwebs in the cage, dirty bedding, no hay, no water, a water bottle full of mildew and mold, and a bowl full of moldy, mushy pellets. After we got them we cleaned out the cage, very thoroughly, put them back in and ordered what we needed for a c and c cage on amazon. That night I heard them fighting. The next day the grids were delivers and we made them a 3 by 5 cage. The girls were chutting, and popcorning. But last night, all I heard was them fighting.what should I do? ( I also have a cage the same size with two boars in it both one month old in the same room about a foot apart.)
 
The previous owners left them outside in the rain as well
 
I'm sorry for your distress. It is normal for piggies to fight in a new (or newly cleaned) space because they have to establish dominance (working out who is "top pig") all over again.

Hopefully that's all it is. It can sound awful. Read the section on bonding and behaviour especially section V here to see more.

Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
 
Piggies12437392 said:
Last night I was suddenly awoken by the horrific sound of screeching, and things being flung around the cage. Yesterday I moved to bonded females into a 3 by 5 c and c cage. They have 2 hides, one they had since we got them and one I made from an amazon box. The one they had has one entrance, the box has 2. When we got them they were heavily neglected and abused, they were in a 1 by 2 petsore cage, barely enough room to turn around, no fresh veggies, bugs and spiderwebs in the cage, dirty bedding, no hay, no water, a water bottle full of mildew and mold, and a bowl full of moldy, mushy pellets. After we got them we cleaned out the cage, very thoroughly, put them back in and ordered what we needed for a c and c cage on amazon. That night I heard them fighting. The next day the grids were delivers and we made them a 3 by 5 cage. The girls were chutting, and popcorning. But last night, all I heard was them fighting.what should I do? ( I also have a cage the same size with two boars in it both one month old in the same room about a foot apart.)
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Hi!

What you do mean exactly with 'heard them fighting'? Did you hear full-on scuffles or just normal dominance with rumble-strutting, chasing and submission screaming? it is likely that your girls are re-establishing their hierarchy in their new territory, as all guinea pigs have to.

What we need to do is to work out whether there are underlying existing rifts from the struggle for survival that have come up to the fore again or whether it is just settling in dominance, which can go up a notch if one of the sows is having a stronger season. Unfortunately, the information you are providing is too vague to allow us to do this.

Please take the time to read these guides. If you can, please take a video and upload it on a public setting elsewhere and then copy/paste into your post. We don't have a video on this forum, which is entirely run on voluntary member donations. But it would help us a lot if we can hear and see the body language for ourselves.
Sows: Behaviour and female health problems (including ovarian cysts)
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs
Bonds In Trouble
 
They were casing each other, nipping at each other, and one female bit the other.
 
Piggies12437392 said:
They are also screeching so they might just be establishing dominance again.
View attachment 152782
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Nipping is a very normal sow behaviour; it often mistaken for biting. Sows only ever bite full on in split second self-defence. Their version of a full-on boar bite is a mouthful of hair, in which case you know that a bond has failed.
" Biting" And What You Can Do (Biting, Tweaking, Nibbling and Nipping)

Full on dominance behaviour can be quite dramatic and take an unprepared owner by surprise.
If you have never had guinea pigs before, you may find our comprehensive New Owners guide collection helpful as it specifically addresses all the areas we get the most questions and concerns about. It is worth bookmarking and using as resource as you go along. It is also worth re-reading the guides with more experience as some aspects and advice suddenly makes a lot more sense. The guide format allows us to update end extend the collection at need. Our full and even more extensive guides collection can be accessed via the shortcut on the top bar.
Here is the New Owners collection link: Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides

All the best! I sincerely hope that it settles down again over the next few days/2 weeks.
 
Hope your little ladies have settled down now and established who is boss of their beautiful new cage. They sound like they have landed on their feet with you. What a horrible time they’ve had being neglected like that, good on you for taking them on x
 
Hope your girls are settling now.
The submission scream can sound as if a piggy is being horribly tortured - it scared me the first time I heard it.
Well done for rescuing the girls.
They sound as if they will have a great life.
Hope all the guides that you have been linked to will help.
We are here to support you
 
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