Housing - How many will live happily?

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Joe7

Hey folks - newcomer to the forums here!

Just wondering how many guinea pigs would be able to be housed together without squabling? (same sex animals of course) and under what conditions would they have to live? (i.e. seperate food bowls or water bottles etc).

I currently only have two cavies, one male (perky) and one female (pinky), who are living together in an attempt to breed - and once the babies come along i am intending to keep them all with mum (having removed perky - the dad already once pinky had become pregnant) until 3 weeks of age, then either put the boys with dad, or in a seperate hutch. The babies are intended to mostly be sold and some kept - depending how many babies arrive!

Back to the point - how many piggies should i be able to house together providing they are all single-sex hutches.
 
how many piggies you can house together depends completely on how much space you have available..

I have seen groups with one neutered boar and up to nine girls with him, without any problems.. provided there are enough houses, enough places to get food from without having to argue, etc..

Can I just add though that I think its quite sad that you are thinking about breeding.. If you have a look around this forum, we are all trying to help with the flood of unwanted guinea pigs that have been bought for kids, or as a present, that have been bred accidentally, or on purpose and got too much work, and that are simply no longer wanted.
Rescues are full of piggies that deserve a second chance in a loving home, so we try to encourage people to take guinea pigs in that have already had a bad start in life, instead of ADDING to the increasing population of unwanted pets. :-(
 
i respect that view and value your advice greatly, but might i add that i have already sorted homes for at least 4 guinea pigs and have a pet store interested in purchasing any off of me that i do not wish to keep - although i wish to keep a couple and i am currently in the process of building a reasonable-sized outdoor pen in my garden for numerous guinea pigs - including rehomed pigs :-) i do not look at guinea pig breeding as a particularly profitable or life-changing experience, i simply wish to raise a few piggies of my own from the very start as a rewarding experience for myself and the piggies.
Nor am i interested in breeding mass-amounts of piggies, i would rather have a few youngsters which i have born and bred myself, and house them with a few older pigs.

In reply to your information about housing pigs together, would boars be likely to fight or squabble if they were not neutered? and would sows be able to live together quite happily in numbers generally?
 
Sorry but it's not rewarding for the piggies. There is a huge risk to the female in breeding - toxaemia being the prime example. I assume, of course, you know about this. I also hope you know that there is no history of this in the lines of your guinea pigs a few generations back.

The fact that you are selling some off to a pet shop clearly illustrates you are breeding to excess. Not the best idea, in my opinion, when there are hundreds of guinea pigs in rescues across this country and others that would have loved to have one of those homes. Please reconsider.

In response to your original question, you may have difficulties in getting boars you have bred from to live together in groups or even pairs, particularly in the proximity of females. Neutering male cavies, unlike in other species, does not alter their behaviour in any way.
 
as i am currently off work due to an injury to my ankle and have alot of excess space in my garden, i have now decided that i am going to build a couple of extra enclosures outdoors for some piggies rescued from a centre. I intend to start building tomorrow, and will then as soon as i am all finished, i will take a trip down to my local rescue centre (Anybody know the closest centre to Tamworth - Approx 15 miles from Birmingham) and find X amount of piggies to bring home with me to the newly built enclosure :-)
 
guinea pigs normally live in herds of 10 in the wild but it depends on space.
 
Joe7 said:
as i am currently off work due to an injury to my ankle and have alot of excess space in my garden, i have now decided that i am going to build a couple of extra enclosures outdoors for some piggies rescued from a centre. I intend to start building tomorrow, and will then as soon as i am all finished, i will take a trip down to my local rescue centre (Anybody know the closest centre to Tamworth - Approx 15 miles from Birmingham) and find X amount of piggies to bring home with me to the newly built enclosure :-)
Click to expand...

Rescuing? After you said you wanted to breed?

Also you are asking for donations!!?
 
i think breeding is wrong, how would you like to be forced to have sex and have many babies that are taken off you? over and over again >:(
 
yeah i agree with what you have all said i mean when we found out the lilly and pregant and the molly was a boy it was upseting

and lilly hated being pregant hated feeding them milk hated them follwing her arond all the time i dont think she enjoyed the expercie at all she is enjoying them more now as there can do things for them selfs and dont have milk no more lilly got preagant be accident and its been so hard for her i owuld never even breed a guina pig or a buy an animal form a pet shop again

lilly has had a tough 2months it wasnt easy for her even tho we have 4 beautfull girls

any more pigs i will be getting will be from reacue centres
 
my guinea pig is pregnant but that was a compete accident due to mis-sexing! you shouldnt breed them :( and definatly dont give the babies to a petshop... you dont know if they will get loving homes... or will get given to someone just to breed them >:(
 
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