Hello!
We got our first two guineas from pets @ home on friday. Everything is going OK so far, apart from a couple of things which it would be great to get some advice on.
The two guinea pigs are both female and were supposed to be around 8 weeks old, but one is noticeably bigger than the other and has become more dominant. She is also bolder in some ways and will eat from our hand BUT....
1. If we try to touch her, even just to stroke, she will immediately "shake" us off and run away to the other side of the cage. We haven't got close to picking her up yet, but can pick up the smaller guinea quite easily, even though she's shy. She will come and sniff our hands sometimes, and doesn't seem to be scared.
2. The bigger guinea seems to be aggressive to the smaller one still.We have an igloo and tube in the cage, but sometimes if the smaller guinea tries to enter the igloo she will be chased out after a lot of loud squeaking. This happens randomly outside of the igloo too, and it looks like the bigger guinea is biting, although there has been no blood.
Should I be worried? I thought that it would take the guineas some time to get to know each other, but its been a few days now, and I don't want the smaller guinea to become a nervous wreck. I also expected them to not like being picked up, but thought that stroking would be easier than it has been.
Any advice would help a lot, thanks!
We got our first two guineas from pets @ home on friday. Everything is going OK so far, apart from a couple of things which it would be great to get some advice on.
The two guinea pigs are both female and were supposed to be around 8 weeks old, but one is noticeably bigger than the other and has become more dominant. She is also bolder in some ways and will eat from our hand BUT....
1. If we try to touch her, even just to stroke, she will immediately "shake" us off and run away to the other side of the cage. We haven't got close to picking her up yet, but can pick up the smaller guinea quite easily, even though she's shy. She will come and sniff our hands sometimes, and doesn't seem to be scared.
2. The bigger guinea seems to be aggressive to the smaller one still.We have an igloo and tube in the cage, but sometimes if the smaller guinea tries to enter the igloo she will be chased out after a lot of loud squeaking. This happens randomly outside of the igloo too, and it looks like the bigger guinea is biting, although there has been no blood.
Should I be worried? I thought that it would take the guineas some time to get to know each other, but its been a few days now, and I don't want the smaller guinea to become a nervous wreck. I also expected them to not like being picked up, but thought that stroking would be easier than it has been.
Any advice would help a lot, thanks!