introducing a new piggy!

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El4anor

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I have had my three piggies, pascal, dappy and brindle for a few months now. It appeared that Brindle was the "dominant" one of the group and he had paired with Dappy. From this, is seemed that Pascal was on his own so i decided to buy him a mate. I have homed a teddy guinea pig, and called him Ted :)

After keeping him separate from the group for a week to make sure he was healthy and happy i decided to introduce Ted to my original 3 cavies. It was in a neutral area where none of them had marked their sent.

All 4 of them began teeth chattering and sniffing each other, but no aggression at first was shown. Then they began to pee on Ted. Pascal became very angry and started showing aggression to all of the piggies, including Dappy and Brindle. He was jumping at them and trying to bite them all. I removed Ted from the situation and he calmed down. From this, and other introductions it appears that Pascal is the dominant piggy of the group.

I then decided to introduce the piggies one at a time, individually, Dappy and Brindle got on better with Ted, there was no aggression, just interest and they are getting on okay, not the best as of yet, but just okay. I then introduced Ted, Brindle and Dappy together and again it seemed better.

I have just tried a one on one introduction with Pascal and Ted, and once again Pascal was being aggressive and tried to bite Ted :/

I dont know what to do? Will they ever get on? Is there a way in which i can help them to make friends? Any suggestions are welcome and much needed!
 
males are better off kept in pairs, trios rarely work. and 4 well good luck.

i'd split them in to 2 pairs and try again.
 
You cannot have a group of males living together. They will always fight. It is best to have them as pairs.
 
How small minded people seem to be!

i would just like to thank everyone for getting back to me, stating that i would never be able to have male guinea pigs living together. I would also like to add, since i posted this thread, i have had 5 male guinea pigs living in the same hutch, no fights, no aggression and no hostility! i have been checking each pig everyday for wounds, and nothing! so i would like to say, it is possible to have male guinea pigs living together, go figure! not everything you read on RSPCA website and whatever else are correct, from what i have learnt, it goes on experience and trial and error. i would also like to add that i have a female rabbit in the same hutch as the male piggies and, guess again, she gets on great with them! from this comment, i hope you all learnt that not everything you read is true, and instead of trying to dishearten people, saying that they "can't" do something, why dont you try and help them achieve it!
 
El4anor said:
i would just like to thank everyone for getting back to me, stating that i would never be able to have male guinea pigs living together. I would also like to add, since i posted this thread, i have had 5 male guinea pigs living in the same hutch, no fights, no aggression and no hostility! i have been checking each pig everyday for wounds, and nothing! so i would like to say, it is possible to have male guinea pigs living together, go figure! not everything you read on RSPCA website and whatever else are correct, from what i have learnt, it goes on experience and trial and error. i would also like to add that i have a female rabbit in the same hutch as the male piggies and, guess again, she gets on great with them! from this comment, i hope you all learnt that not everything you read is true, and instead of trying to dishearten people, saying that they "can't" do something, why dont you try and help them achieve it!
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what do your boars do when showing aggression i have a 3 year old and a 12 week old and the baby of the two keeps having a pop at my older male like really bad teeth chattering and nipping at his face until my older male goes away he also wont allow my older male into sleeping area. My older male is being polite and friendly and the babya having none of it. Is this just dominance or bullying?
 
El4anor said:
i would just like to thank everyone for getting back to me, stating that i would never be able to have male guinea pigs living together. I would also like to add, since i posted this thread, i have had 5 male guinea pigs living in the same hutch, no fights, no aggression and no hostility! i have been checking each pig everyday for wounds, and nothing! so i would like to say, it is possible to have male guinea pigs living together, go figure! not everything you read on RSPCA website and whatever else are correct, from what i have learnt, it goes on experience and trial and error. i would also like to add that i have a female rabbit in the same hutch as the male piggies and, guess again, she gets on great with them! from this comment, i hope you all learnt that not everything you read is true, and instead of trying to dishearten people, saying that they "can't" do something, why dont you try and help them achieve it!
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I doubt very much this will last. Basically it is not a natural set up for boars, they don't live in groups. As someone who has been keeping boars for over 20 years, I do like to think I know some things. This will no doubt escalate into fights when they go through their hormonal months and could end in serious injury to all and break any remaining bonds and end up with 5 single boars all needed new friends. What you have their is extremely irresponsible and dangerous to a certain extent. No rescue on here would EVER reccomend it. That to me speaks volumes. I sincerely hope for the benefit of the pigs that you reconsider and seperate into a pair and find any odd ones new friends or rehome.
 
Lil-Ninnibig said:
what do your boars do when showing aggression i have a 3 year old and a 12 week old and the baby of the two keeps having a pop at my older male like really bad teeth chattering and nipping at his face until my older male goes away he also wont allow my older male into sleeping area. My older male is being polite and friendly and the babya having none of it. Is this just dominance or bullying?
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To answer your question this would be dominance, your youngest will be becoming hormonal about now, it can start anywhere from 3 months to 15, last the whole time or be sporadic. I would class bullying as stopping the other from eating or drinking or physically attacking, hope that helps.
 
We do not recommend keeping rabbits and guinea pigs together, for a variety of reasons, one of the main being that rabbits and guinea pigs have different food requirements - I hope that you are aware that unlike rabbits, guinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C in their bodies and need having it added to their food if you want to avoid long term damage and death through vitamin C deficiency (scurvy).

There is also the matter of the rabbit's kick reflex and the fact that a rabbit can potentially kill or severely injure a guinea pig - and yes, it happens!
http://www.oginet.com/pgurney/rabbits.htm

Boars come into their stroppy months between 4-14 months during which time they are hit by hormonal surges. That can cause fighting with severe bites and permanent fall outs, or end in cases of bad bullying. Most small boar groups will not survive to full adulthood without separations; this is an experience that many members on this forum with 3 or more young boars sadly had to make.

It is our aim on this forum to promote the highest standards of keeping guinea pigs to the best of our currently available knowledge in order to ensure the wellbeing of the animals in our care, in accordance with the standards and guidelines of reputable rescues.
 
boars living together.

Have faith is all I can say - I too was told you cannot keep Boars together in groups bigger than 2, yet I recently visited a guniea pig rescue www.peteandpets.co.uk and saw a 'habitat' of males living happily together in an enclosure. The guy there had 3 males who did not live with the group as they did not get on but he must have had 15 males in the 'habitat'. If your keen to try re-introducing Ted to the group you could try bathing them all together as I was told the fear of the water makes them bond and removes any individual scents.

Good luck xx
 
Racheljessica said:
Have faith is all I can say - I too was told you cannot keep Boars together in groups bigger than 2, yet I recently visited a guniea pig rescue www.peteandpets.co.uk and saw a 'habitat' of males living happily together in an enclosure. The guy there had 3 males who did not live with the group as they did not get on but he must have had 15 males in the 'habitat'. If your keen to try re-introducing Ted to the group you could try bathing them all together as I was told the fear of the water makes them bond and removes any individual scents.

Good luck xx
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Yes, it is possible to have a large boars only group (neither 3 nor 5 boars count as that) - provided that you have LOTS of space like about a minimum of one 1 square metre per boar in a place that is out of all weather and accessible round the year! Lucky, if you can provide the setting for something like that; but it is realistically beyond the reach of most of us.

I don't think that 5 boars in one single hutch they also have to share with a rabbit is the appropriate kind of setting for that!

As you yourself noted, you also need to be able to provide separate extra accommodation for those boars that are either too dominant or become bullied by the large group, as well as a hospital cage for ill animals well away from the others - who may or may not be accepted back into group, or will need lifelong special attention. It is not something to take on if you haven't got much experience with guinea pigs, as you need to be on the ball at all times to spot developing problems quickly.

I have a large group of females with a neutered boar myself. It has been frankly hard work and taken lots of thought to build it up carefully with constant attention to the ever changing group dynamics; by far not all piggies will simply just fit in or thrive in a setting like that! It has also taken all my years of experience to keep hairy situations from blowing up and to find adequate solutions for those guinea pigs that struggled at some point or other - and lots of space, like a whole room for the group to roam during the day!

It is also anything but cheap to keep that many piggies and it takes a lot of time to keep them all fed and watered, provided with fresh hay, cleaned out and disinfected, medicated and groomed regularly at all times. And it can become an outright nightmare if one of the animals comes down with something catching, like skin parasites, ringworm (fungal) or an infectious disease, not to mention the vet/medication cost...
 
Racheljessica said:
Have faith is all I can say - I too was told you cannot keep Boars together in groups bigger than 2, yet I recently visited a guniea pig rescue www.peteandpets.co.uk and saw a 'habitat' of males living happily together in an enclosure. The guy there had 3 males who did not live with the group as they did not get on but he must have had 15 males in the 'habitat'. If your keen to try re-introducing Ted to the group you could try bathing them all together as I was told the fear of the water makes them bond and removes any individual scents.

Good luck xx
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Thank you so much for this post! it is annoying and disheartening when people tell me that they will never get on :/ Ted has been reintroduced into the group now and there have been no more problems (he has been in there for about a month) And at the moment they honestly are getting on great, they sleep in the same house, clean each other, eat together, EVERYTHING! Reading other comments has made me worry that this wont last but since hearing about the "habitat" it has given me hope that i wont have to separate them :)

Thank you sooooo much!
 
Nobody is getting at you so please don't think that. Members have just been pointing out the bad experiences they have had / have heard about groups of boars.

I hope that your boys continue to get on don't have any fall outs.

As for your rabbit, members are just concerned as rabbits and guinea pigs require different nutritionalist requirements and guinea pigs can suffer injuries (sometimes fatal) by being kicked by a rabbit.
 
They might be ok for now but I wouldn't risk it, what if one day things changed and they fought to the death or the least were injured? How big is your hutch?

I think you should at least remove the rabbit! Nobody would recommend having them together as they don't communicate and don't have the same dietary requirements as has been mentioned, without the kicking hazard.

I don't see why you would endanger welfare of an animal just to prove a point when the risks far outweigh the positives!
 
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