Piggydreams
New Born Pup
My boar (not neutered) passed away over 10 days ago, who lived in a cage beside my sow (not spayed). my female GP Lily is a very social pig, loves interacting with humans and liked spending time with my boar as well when we would put them out for play time (under supervision). Since she's still young (1.5 years) and would certainly be better off in a company of another guinea pig, we had been trying to find her a female companion she could share her cage with. Unfortunately we only have pet stores and no rescues in my city, and due to high demand it's been difficult to find a guinea pig from these stores as well. Despite our asking for a female, there was a mistake on their side and they gave us a boar instead. we realized this only after 24 hours of having him with us.
Now, it would break our hearts to let the poor baby go. He's only 2.5 months old and very very skittish, looks like he clearly wasn't looked after much at the pet store. I don't suppose it would be anything less than extremely stressful for him to be switching different places, finally finding a home and then being taken away from there.
But I also don't want my female, as well as him to spend their life without sharing their cages with a companion. I can't keep more than 2 pigs for now, and due to the lack of guinea pig expert vets I don't want to take any risks with neutering or spaying them.
I want to do whatever would be the best for them but I genuinely don't know what to do.
Should I return him and get a female instead? I know there's a chance that Lily may not get along with the new female and then again end up living side by side but at least they'll be able to see and smell and have contact with each other? My previous boar used to bite on the metal grids separating his cage from Lily's (and he once ended up chipping his tooth) which is why we had to put up cardboard sheets on the cage grid up till double his height which further limited the contact between the two. They couldnt see each other at all. The new boar has also been relentlessly biting the cage as well so we had to put up the cardboard barrier again.
Please help me figure out what to do in this situation, any suggestions at all would be super helpful! Thank you for reading.
Now, it would break our hearts to let the poor baby go. He's only 2.5 months old and very very skittish, looks like he clearly wasn't looked after much at the pet store. I don't suppose it would be anything less than extremely stressful for him to be switching different places, finally finding a home and then being taken away from there.
But I also don't want my female, as well as him to spend their life without sharing their cages with a companion. I can't keep more than 2 pigs for now, and due to the lack of guinea pig expert vets I don't want to take any risks with neutering or spaying them.
I want to do whatever would be the best for them but I genuinely don't know what to do.
Should I return him and get a female instead? I know there's a chance that Lily may not get along with the new female and then again end up living side by side but at least they'll be able to see and smell and have contact with each other? My previous boar used to bite on the metal grids separating his cage from Lily's (and he once ended up chipping his tooth) which is why we had to put up cardboard sheets on the cage grid up till double his height which further limited the contact between the two. They couldnt see each other at all. The new boar has also been relentlessly biting the cage as well so we had to put up the cardboard barrier again.
Please help me figure out what to do in this situation, any suggestions at all would be super helpful! Thank you for reading.
