Fluffbabies
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi everyone, I have just got 3 girl piggies from the rehoming part of PetsAtHome and I have been told they are about 6 weeks old. I had lots of piggies growing up as my parents used to show them and I've refreshed myself doing loads of research on them before finally committing to rehoming my own. These 3 were living together at PetsAtHome and we were told they had to stay together and as they already knew each other we thought they'd be getting on well in their new home.
This is day 3 that we've had them. The first day was very quiet but they all came out to explore and by day two they've been confidently eating and drinking away. We thought great that's quite fast. Cue day 3 today and it's been constant chattering, nipping faces/bottoms, headbutting, chasing, raising heads and the associated squeaking. I thought it was one of them to start with but they're all doing it to each other now. All three of them to each other and none seem to be giving up. The one that started off the shyest (Leia) is now strutting around chattering and biting the others (Oreo and Ginger) sending them squealing. When I say it's constant I mean they hardly go 2 minutes between chattering and biting each other. It generally stops after a few bites back and forth until the next episode. I feel like I've got to keep an eye on them constantly in case the chattering and biting doesn't stop and it turns into a full on fight and they get hurt.
I've read a lot about it and it seems to be advised to leave them to it and only intervene if their hair gets raised, there's non-stop chattering/hissing and they're rising up to each other because that means there's going to be a big fight OR wait until blood is drawn... BUT I am so scared and stressed about it! I don't remember ever hearing this much chattering when we owned piggies before.
Update: the used to be shyest (Leia) is now stalking from one to the other kind of jumping on them (humping?) and biting near their head and then stalks to the other and does the same. Then back to the first one and keeps going back and forth doing this until I couldn't take any more and moved sudden to scare them out of it. I know it can look more serious than it is but I'm worried.
Is this normal? Should I leave them to it?
Is this because they're in a new environment so they're refiguring out their hierarchy?
Another bit of detail... all three are in one cage. We were planning on getting a 5x2 C&C for them then eventually adding a loft so they had plenty of space from the get go. But we were told we could only reserve them for 3 days and it wouldn't arrive that fast so we got the biggest we could in that time frame, which was the 120 from Petsathome. They are small because of their age and we have four difference places for them to hide (under the shelf, big tunnel, little tunnel and big pile of hay) but we still intend to get a C&C within the next 2 months. We thought this would be okay to start of with but now I'm fretting that they need that big space now to ease their problems.
Was this inevitable even with a bigger cage? If we move them into another bigger environment will we go through this all again?
I just hope they hurry up and figure it out because they seemed like such good friends before!
Also we've had them out of the cage each day just for a short while (10-15 minutes tops) partly to give them a break from being stuck in the cage and with each other and also so they get used to us and they've been really good considering how new they are to us. We have had chattering when we open the cage and we leave them alone when they do that but we've also had two of them lick our fingers and give us a gentle nibble. Maybe we should leave them completely alone so they don't have more stress of us handling them.
A massive thank you in advance to anyone who's taken the time to read our situation and get back to us xx
This is day 3 that we've had them. The first day was very quiet but they all came out to explore and by day two they've been confidently eating and drinking away. We thought great that's quite fast. Cue day 3 today and it's been constant chattering, nipping faces/bottoms, headbutting, chasing, raising heads and the associated squeaking. I thought it was one of them to start with but they're all doing it to each other now. All three of them to each other and none seem to be giving up. The one that started off the shyest (Leia) is now strutting around chattering and biting the others (Oreo and Ginger) sending them squealing. When I say it's constant I mean they hardly go 2 minutes between chattering and biting each other. It generally stops after a few bites back and forth until the next episode. I feel like I've got to keep an eye on them constantly in case the chattering and biting doesn't stop and it turns into a full on fight and they get hurt.
I've read a lot about it and it seems to be advised to leave them to it and only intervene if their hair gets raised, there's non-stop chattering/hissing and they're rising up to each other because that means there's going to be a big fight OR wait until blood is drawn... BUT I am so scared and stressed about it! I don't remember ever hearing this much chattering when we owned piggies before.
Update: the used to be shyest (Leia) is now stalking from one to the other kind of jumping on them (humping?) and biting near their head and then stalks to the other and does the same. Then back to the first one and keeps going back and forth doing this until I couldn't take any more and moved sudden to scare them out of it. I know it can look more serious than it is but I'm worried.
Is this normal? Should I leave them to it?
Is this because they're in a new environment so they're refiguring out their hierarchy?
Another bit of detail... all three are in one cage. We were planning on getting a 5x2 C&C for them then eventually adding a loft so they had plenty of space from the get go. But we were told we could only reserve them for 3 days and it wouldn't arrive that fast so we got the biggest we could in that time frame, which was the 120 from Petsathome. They are small because of their age and we have four difference places for them to hide (under the shelf, big tunnel, little tunnel and big pile of hay) but we still intend to get a C&C within the next 2 months. We thought this would be okay to start of with but now I'm fretting that they need that big space now to ease their problems.
Was this inevitable even with a bigger cage? If we move them into another bigger environment will we go through this all again?
I just hope they hurry up and figure it out because they seemed like such good friends before!
Also we've had them out of the cage each day just for a short while (10-15 minutes tops) partly to give them a break from being stuck in the cage and with each other and also so they get used to us and they've been really good considering how new they are to us. We have had chattering when we open the cage and we leave them alone when they do that but we've also had two of them lick our fingers and give us a gentle nibble. Maybe we should leave them completely alone so they don't have more stress of us handling them.
A massive thank you in advance to anyone who's taken the time to read our situation and get back to us xx
