How many boys can you have?

[Harald<3Odin]

hello
We are a couple from Norway, that have two young males. Harald is born in January and Odin in February. They are so cute, and can not be separated without starting to scream!
There are a lot of guinea pigs in Norway that need to get a new home, and we want to help some more pigs <3 so we wounder how many males can we have together? we saw a movie on youtube, where there were loads of pigs together. Can you have male and female together, if they are castrated? We know we can not have just one girl with two males, but can you have two males and two females?

Thank you for taking time to help us
Best regards from Erlend and Henriette

 

[Connie]

Unfortunatly boars are best kept in pairs! more than two and you start to have LOTS of trouble.

Again, sadly with neutered boars its 1 boar to many females.

There are rare acceptions to these rules, however trios of boars dont usually make it through their hormone months intact, let alone larger groups.

There is one lady i know of who has more than one neutered male to a group of females, however its a MASSIVE group of piggies (i think upwards of 30) and they have loads of space.

However there is no reason you could not get a second pair of piggies to live seperatly from your current boys


I hope than answers your question and welcome to the forum!

 

[MerryPip]

Welcome!

Well done for thinking about homing more piggies in need!

I have two pairs of boys but as has been said before, they are better in pairs than in groups as males will fight for dominance and any more than two makes that a constant.

I hope you find the right solution for you to increase your furry family!

 

[Amanda1801]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

As others have said, the general rule is 2 male as a pair, or 1 neutered male to 1+ females as living companions.

If you're wanting to help the guinea pigs in rescues and such, and feel that you're looking at maybe taking on some more, do you have the room and facilities to maybe house another pair separately?

 

[Wiebke]

Hi and welcome!

I love the Norse theme!

Boars are best kept in pairs; trios and quartets are very unstable and prone to fail unless they choose each other, preferably as adults. Boars hit the big hormones between 4-14 months old and are suddenly no longer your cuddly friendly furry friends. Whether they make it through that rough patch together, depends ultimately on whether they are character compatible or not. You can find out more about that in our boar guide and the boar behaviour in the behaviour section; they contain further links.

There are a few large boar herds, but these rely on LOTS of space to work (preferably more than a minimum of 1 square metre per boar ), and you will still need extra space to cater for those boars that get into bloody fights or are bullied by the others. I would strongly recommend that you wait with any big plans until you have more experience. Your goal is worthwhile though!

I have realised my own dream of building up two herds of rescue rehomed sows with one neutered boar each very carefully over the last three years, but I have been relying heavily on the experience I have gained from growing up with guinea pigs and several years of keeping pairs as an adult. Not every piggy will fit every set up; it is important that you are always aware of your limitations as well as your potential.

If you want to gain experience first, a good way is to get involved with a rescue and to eventually be able to foster piggies for them.