Cocoa&Caramel
New Born Pup
Hi all! I am relatively new guinea pig owner so some behaviors are so odd to me and I just want to make sure that I shouldn't be concerned.
A little backstory on my pigs: I have a female Cocoa who is 1.5 years old and a neutered male Caramel who is 1 year and 3 months old. Initially, my vet and I thought that both of my pigs were female, I guess Caramel was too young at his first checkup to really be able to tell easily. Either way, we ended up with 4 additional baby boys Nov 2020 (who have all since found great homes). I separated them, and due to a family tragedy and concerns with COVID, it was about 10 months until I was able to get Caramel neutered and all healed up. I reintroduced them late August 2021 and the introduction went fine, so I moved them in. It took them about 2 days to get settled in and they seemed much happier together than they were apart. Skip to now, late October 2021, and suddenly Cocoa has started rumbling at Caramel and trying to mount him? (For reference Caramel has never stopped rumbling at Cocoa, which I thought was normal.) Today they started circling each other which concerns me. There has been no fight as much as I can tell (no blood or bite wounds) and even no teeth chattering. There has been some distressed noises when one gets too close to the other, though. When they circle eventually one will run off and sometimes even popcorn which is so confusing to me. Right now they are happily sharing food out of one bowl and are grooming near each other. I am just confused on whether this means that the bond is failing and I need to separate or if this is normal and they'll get over it. Some advice would be much appreciated!
A little backstory on my pigs: I have a female Cocoa who is 1.5 years old and a neutered male Caramel who is 1 year and 3 months old. Initially, my vet and I thought that both of my pigs were female, I guess Caramel was too young at his first checkup to really be able to tell easily. Either way, we ended up with 4 additional baby boys Nov 2020 (who have all since found great homes). I separated them, and due to a family tragedy and concerns with COVID, it was about 10 months until I was able to get Caramel neutered and all healed up. I reintroduced them late August 2021 and the introduction went fine, so I moved them in. It took them about 2 days to get settled in and they seemed much happier together than they were apart. Skip to now, late October 2021, and suddenly Cocoa has started rumbling at Caramel and trying to mount him? (For reference Caramel has never stopped rumbling at Cocoa, which I thought was normal.) Today they started circling each other which concerns me. There has been no fight as much as I can tell (no blood or bite wounds) and even no teeth chattering. There has been some distressed noises when one gets too close to the other, though. When they circle eventually one will run off and sometimes even popcorn which is so confusing to me. Right now they are happily sharing food out of one bowl and are grooming near each other. I am just confused on whether this means that the bond is failing and I need to separate or if this is normal and they'll get over it. Some advice would be much appreciated!
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