Keeping A Bonded Male Pair in Room With Females?

Dystopoly

Dystopoly

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I apologize if I should have posted this in housing instead, but since it’s the behavior I’m worried about I thought I’d post it here. I have my two (1 year old) boys together in a 4x2 C&C cage with a 2x2 upper floor, and they’ve been living together happily since they were babies (with one minor spat due to a hormone spike that was quickly resolved).

Earlier this week, someone abandoned a year old hairless female guinea pig at my work and ever since I’ve fallen in love with her and am absolutely dying to take her home, too. The only problem is that I would be needing to keep her in the same room with the boys, and I absolutely do NOT want to break their bond.

She would be out of sight, most likely set up in her own 2x4 underneath them. Is this doable? How big of a risk am I taking by keeping her so close to my boys? I’ve heard lots of people saying they’ve had great success with housing boys and girls in the same room, but if it’s a high risk they’ll fall out with each other then I will have to give up on her completely. I would really love to be able to make it work, including looking into getting her or the boys fixed if that would resolve the issue.
Any and all advice would be appreciated!DADDF156-AE32-49A3-BA4F-9AE6562A72FE.webp
(Here’s a photo of her sleeping in my lap today, She absolutely makes my heart MELT.)
 
Awwww bless her!

We read lots of mixed reports on boys and girls in same room

Hopefully people who have done this can advise. Will also tag @ Wiebke in for you she should be around in morning Uk time
 
i have boar pair in the same room as a neutered male with 3 sows making a herd.ive not had any problems with fallouts due to sows in close proxsimity,but mine are very used to this from the start.if your boars have not been around sows i would be very careful,as it can cause unrest in boar pairs !
 
I have a pair of boars, a pair of sows and a trio of a neutered board and two sows living in the same room and I have no problems. The dynamics of the groups haven’t always been the same due to deaths, but everyone has settles straight away. My sows cage is under the boars cage which possibly helps. Will you be getting a friend for your beautiful girl?
 
I’m sure it works, as long as the sows are out of sight and scent of the boars.
 
I also have a pair of boars and a pair of sows in the same room, and have had absolutely no problem, and am also hoping to get a stacking cage to give the girls a bit more space. The boys seem completely oblivious to the girls' presence (they always seem to be bemused as to where this other, extremely loud wheeking is coming from), and they've still got an extremely close bond.

The one thing I would say just to do as a precaution is just to make sure the boars are always handled/cleaned out/poo-picked first, so there's no chance of them catching the sows' scent on anything. It's a pretty easy routine to get into!
 
I’ve kept a pair of sows in the same room as boars for 9 months now. At the start they were at opposite sides of the room. They’re now in a stacked cage with the girls underneath.

As said above, make sure that you handle/clean the boys first. If you touch the girl I would wash your hands just to err on the side of caution.

She’s beautiful and quite trusting already it seems.
 
Dystopoly said:
I apologize if I should have posted this in housing instead, but since it’s the behavior I’m worried about I thought I’d post it here. I have my two (1 year old) boys together in a 4x2 C&C cage with a 2x2 upper floor, and they’ve been living together happily since they were babies (with one minor spat due to a hormone spike that was quickly resolved).

Earlier this week, someone abandoned a year old hairless female guinea pig at my work and ever since I’ve fallen in love with her and am absolutely dying to take her home, too. The only problem is that I would be needing to keep her in the same room with the boys, and I absolutely do NOT want to break their bond.

She would be out of sight, most likely set up in her own 2x4 underneath them. Is this doable? How big of a risk am I taking by keeping her so close to my boys? I’ve heard lots of people saying they’ve had great success with housing boys and girls in the same room, but if it’s a high risk they’ll fall out with each other then I will have to give up on her completely. I would really love to be able to make it work, including looking into getting her or the boys fixed if that would resolve the issue.
Any and all advice would be appreciated!View attachment 118675
(Here’s a photo of her sleeping in my lap today, She absolutely makes my heart MELT.)
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Hi!

Please follow the advice in the paragraph on sows and boars in the same room in chapter III of our boar guide. As well as on the protocol when you have both boar only pairs and sows - it is boars first in everything in order to avoid transferring sow pheromones that could set them off; especially teenage boars can react quite strongly with consequences if their bond is already very stressed.
The guide link takes you through all your options in detail: A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars
 
KathT said:
I have a pair of boars, a pair of sows and a trio of a neutered board and two sows living in the same room and I have no problems. The dynamics of the groups haven’t always been the same due to deaths, but everyone has settles straight away. My sows cage is under the boars cage which possibly helps. Will you be getting a friend for your beautiful girl?
Click to expand...

Hopefully, yes! Assuming all goes well and I decide to move forward with taking her home. I hate seeing Guinea pigs in isolation, and it seems she’s been alone her whole life. I’m just a tad bit nervous about theoretically pairing her with a non-hairless guinea pig, as I have no experience with it.
 
Siikibam said:
I’ve kept a pair of sows in the same room as boars for 9 months now. At the start they were at opposite sides of the room. They’re now in a stacked cage with the girls underneath.

As said above, make sure that you handle/clean the boys first. If you touch the girl I would wash your hands just to err on the side of caution.

She’s beautiful and quite trusting already it seems.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input! I think I’m going to try and bring home a bag of her dirty bedding at first to keep in the room with them - just to see if that causes any sudden aggression spikes as they haven’t been around girls since they were both only about a month old. She’s incredibly trusting and sweet, which is amazing considering her previous owners kept her alone in a very small (what looked to be a petsmart Rat cage?) enclosure and never got her a friend.
 
Caris said:
I also have a pair of boars and a pair of sows in the same room, and have had absolutely no problem, and am also hoping to get a stacking cage to give the girls a bit more space. The boys seem completely oblivious to the girls' presence (they always seem to be bemused as to where this other, extremely loud wheeking is coming from), and they've still got an extremely close bond.

The one thing I would say just to do as a precaution is just to make sure the boars are always handled/cleaned out/poo-picked first, so there's no chance of them catching the sows' scent on anything. It's a pretty easy routine to get into!
Click to expand...

Did you add the sows in after you already had the boars, or vice versa? The main thing I am concerned about is that neither of them have been around a girl since they were very little and being kept in a room full of boys and girls.
 
Dystopoly said:
Did you add the sows in after you already had the boars, or vice versa? The main thing I am concerned about is that neither of them have been around a girl since they were very little and being kept in a room full of boys and girls.
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I know this isn’t directed to me but I’ll answer it as well. I had my boys first and assume they were only in the vicinity of girls before they were brought to the shop. But I still made sure to keep the girls’ scent away from them.

I would just house her in the opposite side of the room if possible, and then build a stacked cage and put her beneath the boys.
 
Dystopoly said:
Did you add the sows in after you already had the boars, or vice versa? The main thing I am concerned about is that neither of them have been around a girl since they were very little and being kept in a room full of boys and girls.
Click to expand...
I had my boars first. And they'd only been around each other since they were 6 weeks old when I got them. No girls near them. They're about 7/8 months old now, going through their teenage phase, but I've not had any problems at all. Right now my girls are halfway across the room (with a box blocking the view of them).The boys literally haven't noticed the girls, and the most they've ever done is rumblestrut at each other. Usually they'll keep out of each other's way if they're having a hormone spike. I think if you have a bigger cage, too, it lessens the tension between them. But there's been no changes that I've noticed since the girls arrived.
 
So, I took a bag of her VERY dirty bedding home and put it open about 4-5 feet away from their tank, and they’ve had absolutely no reactions so far. I know it’s different than having an actual female beneath them, but I’m hopeful that they’ve had NO reaction to a female smell being introduced to the room. I think I’m going to slowly move it closer over the next few days (only up to where she would realistically be living in proximity to them) and if there is STILL no reaction, I’m going to go ahead and take her home. I’m so excited!
 
Dystopoly said:
So, I took a bag of her VERY dirty bedding home and put it open about 4-5 feet away from their tank, and they’ve had absolutely no reactions so far. I know it’s different than having an actual female beneath them, but I’m hopeful that they’ve had NO reaction to a female smell being introduced to the room. I think I’m going to slowly move it closer over the next few days (only up to where she would realistically be living in proximity to them) and if there is STILL no reaction, I’m going to go ahead and take her home. I’m so excited!
Click to expand...

As long as you keep any girls out of sight and reach of pheromones, you should be OK.
 
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